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).

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, during March 21 states had unemployment rate decreases, 17 states and the District of Columbia had increases, and 12 states had no change, compared with February.

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.