Labor/Economy

Real gross domestic product in the United States increased at an annualized rate of 0.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

S&P Dow Jones Indices reported that the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, which it publishes, showed that home prices are still going up on an annual basis, though not as much as they have been.

Housing numbers have been trending negative lately, at least in terms of sales (prices are still going up), but the National Association of Realtors reported that after months of going nowhere, its pending home sales rose in March.

U.S. consumer sentiment is up, with the mid-April reading coming in at 82.6, according to the Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index.

Indicators for the U.S. economy in March have so far been coming in mixed, but on Thursday there was one more for the positive side of the ledger: durable goods orders were up 2.6 percent for the month, according to the Census Bureau.

Sales of new single-family housing came in at an annualized rate of 384,000 units in March, according to the Census Bureau.

The National Association of Realtors reported that total existing U.S. home sales dropped 0.2 percent to an annualized rate of 4.59 million units in March, compared with 4.6 million in February.

The Conference Board reported that its Leading Economic Index was up in March (and its Coincident and Lagging Indexes were up, too).