Wall Street stocks wavered on Tuesday as strong housing data raised the prospect of higher interest rates taking the steam out of a weeks-long rally in US equities.
The benchmark S&P 500 closed down 0.5 per cent while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended 0.2 per cent lower following a federal holiday on Monday.
The weakness followed an unexpected spurt in new home construction that put housing starts at their highest level in more than a year. Economists had forecast a slight decline, anticipating that homebuyers would be deterred by high borrowing costs, so the data suggested domestic demand was strong enough that the Federal Reserve could be tempted to raise interest rates further still in their efforts to cool inflation.
Read the full story on the Financial Times here.