Consumer Prices Tank, Almost As Fast As Homes

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Burning_house_picBurningmoneyThis morning we got mixed news on the economy.  The good news is that the prices you are paying for goods is not as bad as in prior months when energy was through the roof.  The bad news is that housing is as far from recovery as it can be.

Consumer prices came in on the nominal number at -1.0% while estimateswere -0.7%.  CPI on an ex-food and ex-energy basis came in at -0.1%versus +0.1% estimates.

Housing starts for October at -4.5%, even worse than the -3% seen inSeptember.  This comes to a seasonally adjusted rate of 791,000 versusan expected annualized reading of 780,000 units.  While this is notquite as bad as estimates were bracing for, keep in mind thatthis is essentially a record low.

On a nationwide basis, it was estimated that 69,000 houses were started in October, and an estimated 59,600 building permitswere issued in October.  Both numbers are not seasonally adjusted.

Jon C. Ogg
November 19, 2008

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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