Home construction jumps $6.3% in June
SILVER SPRING, Md. – Home construction in the U.S. jumped 6.3% in June, another big swing in a volatile year.
The rise in June put home construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.64 million units, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
Home construction starts rose 12.6% in the West and 9.7% in the South, offsetting high single-digit declines in the Northeast and Midwest.
Applications for building permits, which are used to forecast future activity, declined 5.1% in June to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.59 million units.
Applications for permits declined in all four regions. Those declines could validate some economists’ predictions that the surge in home building and sales over the past year may begin to slow, especially for single-family homes.
Supply chain problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic have hamstrung builders, who have faced material shortages and inflated prices for lumber, though the latter has moderated somewhat, at least at the wholesale level.
Month-to-month, homebuilding activity has been on a wild ride so far this year, with several double-digit swings in either direction.
United reduces quarterly loss to $434M; revenue up
United Airlines reduced its quarterly loss to $434 million and posted surprisingly strong revenue as U.S. vacation travel picked up.
In reporting its second-quarter results Tuesday, the Chicago-based airline said it expects to earn a pretax profit in the remaining two quarters of the year.
That would break a string of six-straight money-losing quarters since the pandemic began to crush air travel.
“Our airline has reached a meaningful turning point: We’re expecting to be back to making a profit once again,” CEO Scott Kirby said in a prepared statement.
However, United is trailing key rivals as the airlines claw to get back to profitability.
In April, Southwest was the first U.S. airline to report a profit since the pandemic hit, and Delta followed last week – in both cases, profits were possible only because of money from taxpayers.
United’s shares rose 6.6% in regular trading Tuesday as travel stocks rebounded from large losses on Monday. In extended trading after the results were released, the shares slipped less than 1%.
More than 2 million people a day have boarded planes in the U.S. this month, nearly the double the number that were flying back in March.
Markets roar back Tuesday after Monday losses
Stocks jumped on Wall Street Tuesday, making up much of the ground they lost a day earlier when worries flared about spreading cases of the more contagious variant of COVID-19.
The comeback was the latest rebound following a pullback as investors continue to try and assess how badly rising infections will hurt the economic recovery.
The S&P 500 rose 64.57 points, or 1.5%, to 4,323.06. The gain erased most of the benchmark index’s 1.6% loss on Monday, its biggest since May.
Airlines, cruise operators and other stocks that sank a day earlier were back in the winning column.
American Airlines climbed 8.4% and Carnival gained 7.5%.
Technology, financial, industrial and health care stocks also powered a big share of the benchmark index’s broad gains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 549.95 points, or 1.6%, to 34,511.99. The blue-chip index lost 725 points a day earlier. The Nasdaq composite gained 223.89 points, or 1.6%, to 14,498.88.
Small company stocks mounted the strongest comeback. The Russell 2000 index outpaced the other major indexes with a gain of 63.62 points, or 3%, to 2,194.30.
From wire reports