Anthony Chan Headline Quotations

The outsized gain in housing starts was influenced by the same variable dominating most of the other headline stats like the retail sales and industrial production, namely weather. Everyone knows that housing starts is a volatile number that generally reports wide swings.

Even though the headline number came in much stronger, it isn't the number investors are going to be focusing on.

It would have been a lot more comforting to see greater strength in the ex-auto component than in the headline figure.

The key number was not the headline (overall CPI) number,

The headline number is encouraging, but if you strip out the volatile components and look at core growth, it's telling you we're turning the corner, but we're not running around the corner.