Investing.com - The number of housing starts issues in the U.S. fell sharply in February, while building permits topped expectations, official data showed Tuesday.
In a report, the U.S. Commerce Department said that U.S. housing starts declined by 17.0% last month to hit a seasonally adjusted 897,000 units from January’s total of 1.081 million units, worse than expectations for a decline of 2.4% to 1.049 million.
The report also showed that the number of building permits issued last month increased by 3.0% to a seasonally adjusted 1.092 million units from January’s total of 1.060 million.
Analysts expected building permits to fall by 0.5% to 1.065 million units in February.
EUR/USD was trading at 1.0629 from around 1.0636 ahead of the release of the data, GBP/USD was at 1.4774 from 1.4770 earlier, while USD/JPY was at 121.18 from 121.21 earlier.
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was at 99.74, compared to 99.66 ahead of the report.
Meanwhile, U.S. stock futures pointed to a modestly lower open. The Dow futures pointed to a loss of 0.25% at the open, the S&P 500 futures inched down 0.2%, while the Nasdaq 100 futures shed 0.1%.
Elsewhere, in the commodities market, gold futures traded at $1,150.60 a troy ounce, compared to $1,150.80 ahead of the data, while crude oil traded at $45.10 a barrel from $45.11 earlier.