Bill Losey’s Weekly Economic Update for Jan. 31st, 2011

4Q GDP: +3.2%
The preliminary estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis certainly beats the +2.6% mark from 3Q 2010. A deeper look into the BEA report reveals both personal consumption and nonresidential fixed investment improving by a healthy 4.4% last quarter; inventory accumulation slowed as well.

HUGE JUMP IN NEW HOME SALES
The pace of new home sales improved by 17.5% last month, according to the Census Bureau. In year-over-year terms, sales were down 7.6% while sale prices were 9.1% better. For the record, fewer new homes were built in 2010 than in any year since the government started keeping records in 1963. In other housing news, the National Association of Realtors reported that pending home sales were up for the fifth time in the last six months in December (+2.0%), and Freddie Mac reported that the average interest rate on a 30-year conventional mortgage has risen to 4.80%.

DISSIMILAR FINDINGS FROM CONFIDENCE POLLS
While the Conference Board’s January poll showed U.S. consumer confidence at an 8-month peak (60.6), the final January Reuters/University of Michigan survey showed a slight decline to 74.2 from 74.5 in December.

DURABLE GOODS ORDERS DOWN 2.5%
There was a silver lining in the Commerce Department’s December report: with aircraft orders factored out, durable goods orders were up 0.5% last month.

FEARS, EARNINGS REPORTS STAGGER STOCKS
Unrest in Egypt (and subpar 4Q results from Ford, Amazon and Microsoft) led to a lot of selling Friday and took the DJIA, S&P 500 and NASDAQ lower for the week. The Dow’s eight-week winning streak was snapped; it did top 12,000 in intraday trading Friday. Weekly performances were as follows: DJIA, -0.41% to 11,823.70; S&P 500, -0.55% to 1,276.34; NASDAQ, -0.10% to 2,686.89. The CBOE VIX gained 8.50% last week.