Labor/Economy

Initial unemployment claims came in at an annualized 304,000, an uptick of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday. Last week the weekly claims rate was at a post-recession low.

U.S. housing starts in March came in at an annualized rate of 946,000 units, according to the Census Bureau on Wednesday. This is 2.8 percent higher than the revised February estimate of 920,000 units, but 5.9 percent lower than the March 2013 rate of 1.01 million units.

The National Association of Home Builders reported that that the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, which gauges builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes, rose one point to 47 in April from a downwardly revised March reading of 46.

The Census Bureau reported that retail and food services sales for March, adjusted for seasonal variation and holiday and trading-day differences—but not for price changes—came in at $433.9 billion, an increase of 1.1 percent from February.

The preliminary Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index for April came in at 82.6, according to the university, an increase from 80.0 at the end of March, and 79.9 in mid-March. The latest reading is the highest since last summer.

For the week ending April 5, initial unemployment claims came in at 300,000, a sharp decrease of 32,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

According to the minutes of the most recent Federal Open Market Committee meeting the committee said (in central-bank language) that 6.5 percent U.S. unemployment was no magic number.