A new report from the National Association of Realtors has indicated better news from the housing industry which sent stocks higher today. The report showed there was an increase in the number of people signing contracts to buy homes which is one percent higher than last December which was the ninth month of improvement over the last ten.
Daniel Penrod, senior industry analyst for the California Credit Union League said, "It's a slow, sustainable growth. Most people would prefer a quick rebound but that's not likely to happen."
Also, last Friday the government reported that the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent in the final three months of 2009 which is a much faster pace than was expected economists.
Both of these reports have made a positive impact to the stock market which was slowly tumbling in the latter part of January as concerns grew that the recovery might be stalling and that the housing market's 10-month gain was about to end.
Investors are now turning their attention to a series of upcoming economic reports to see if the growth that was seen late last year will continue. One of the most important indicators will be Friday's Labor Department report on January's employment numbers.