The National Association of Homebuilders released their Housing Market Index stats today and showed that the number of housing starts and building permits obtained in October had increased right along with builder confidence. One concern mentioned in the report (which you can access here) was that while consumers seem more interested in buying, banks simply are not lending as readily as builders would like. This impacts both consumers and builders negatively as it makes both mortgages and construction credits harder to obtain.
Many companies released positive quarterly financials with increases in earnings today including Hasbro Inc (NYSE: HAS) whose net earnings grew 3 percent, Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) who posted a $2.2 billion dollar profit for the quarter and International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE: IBM) showing a 12 percent increase in net income.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 80.91 percent to 11,143.69. The Nasdaq rose 11.89 points to 2,480.66 and the S&P 500 climbed 8.52 points to 1,184.71.
European markets were up on Monday while Asian markets were down.
Stocks in the news: Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL), Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL), Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC).
