What's the current state of the US housing market?
With housing on the Fed's "must do better" list, have we seen enough or any improvement recently?
There's been mixed signals among the data. Housing starts have been up and down this year but August's 1126 starts is higher than the 2015 average of 1086. Permits were 1170 vs 1152 avg. New home sales printed 552 in Aug vs 514 avg
The NAHB housing market index hit the highest since Nov 2005 in September. Today we get October's number which is expected in unchanged at 62
How is the wider picture looking?
Based on pre-crisis levels the recovery in the housing market has been pretty decent. Starts and permits have certainly been trending well but perhaps new home sales could be doing better in eating into the new inventory coming onto the market
US housing market
There's still plenty of scope here for the Fed to repeat the 'need to see further improvement line', even though they did note that the market had seen further improvement in the Sep FOMC statement
A good showing by the housing data starting today, and running into the FOMC next week, will be dollar positive as the market ticks one item on its checklist for what constitutes raising expectations for the Dec meeting
It might be a slow build for the buck but we've seen the bullishness build into virtually every meeting the last few months. It might be harder work and worth less mileage this time but don't write it off. If we see worse numbers then that will increase fears of a slowdown and the dollar will suffer
Get your data watching binoculars ready for the first round at 14.00 GMT
