US Housing starts fell from a five year high as the Commerce Department reported that new residential construction fell to just under one million seasonally adjusted starts. While the report was better than economists had been expecting, the focus continues to be on the uptrend seen quarter over quarter. In the third quarter of 2013, the seasonally adjusted average was 882,000 starts, while the fourth quarter average increased to one million starts. The US markets were trading in mixed fashion on the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher, while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 were slightly lower.

For MarketNewsVideo.com, I'm Sayoko Murase.