[CAF Note: Just goes to show you how the housing market can improve when the Fed writes a $2 trillion forward purchase at 1,000% above market price through 2015!]
The U.S. housing market has shown “widespread improvement,” but economic activity has improved only modestly in recent months, according to the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book.
The central bank releases its anecdotal findings on the state of the economy across the Fed’s 12 districts eight times a year.
The report showed that 10 of the 12 Fed districts reported modest growth, up from nine in the previous report. Only the New York and Kansas City districts saw a leveling off or slowing growth.
Consumer spending was generally reported to be flat to up slightly since the last report, and conditions in manufacturing appeared to be slightly improved, respondents told the Fed. There was little growth in the labor market during August and September according to the Beige Book, but last month’s official jobs report showed the national unemployment rate falling to 7.8 percent.
