Labor/Economy

Investors, economists and financial journalists were watching the Federal Open Market Committee as it concluded its second day of meetings, and in the end the FOMC surprised on the side of winding the stimulus down, or at least reducing the rate of bond-buying starting at the end of 2013.

Homebuilders were reported to be more optimistic on Tuesday, and on Wednesday they had some reason to be, though not quite to the level of irrational exuberance: housing starts in May came in at an annualized rate of 914,000 units, according to the Census Bureau.

American homebuilders have finally climbed out of their crummy funk, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

The International Monetary Fund reported that it expects the U.S. economy to grow by a relatively anemic 1.9 percent in 2013, while asserting that growth could be as much as 1.75 percentage points more than the estimate, but the sequester is getting in the way.

The Census Bureau reported that retail and food service sales were up 0.6 percent compared with April and 4.3 percent year-over-year.

CoreLogic reported that about 850,000 U.S. residential properties were no longer underwater as of the end of the first quarter of 2013 or, as the company put it, “returned to a state of positive equity.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, which casts a bit of a different light on the national employment picture.

According to St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard, speaking at 19th Annual Conference of Montreal, which was organized by the International Economic Forum of the Americas, low U.S. inflation has been a surprise.