The US housing data was released about an hour ago and it was a mixed bag. The building permits jumped to 1.225 million from 1.165 million on the previous month. That's a huge jump, so everything must be jolly on the housing market, right? 

Not so fast, the housing starts declined by nearly 100k. This is the softest number since May last year. We didn't need that, did we? The USD bulls in particular, must have taken another bullet. Just when Yellen is trying to round up together the whole gang together for the December interest rate hike. Just when the other sectors of the US economy are beginning to heat up. Just when the USD is finding its legs again.

It's not all gloomy after all, so cheer up USD bulls. This is just a soft number after years of expansion. In fact, this has been one of the best performing sectors after the housing crisis, which followed the global financial crisis in 2008.

This might be just a glitch or mismatch, because the builders wouldn't ask for more permits if they couldn't build enough in the previous month. Anyway, the USD ducked after the release. Bottom line, this won't change anything for the FED. If the November numbers are horrible as well, only then we might see the FED back off once again.