Economic Week in Review

Summary: This week's economic reports suggest that the housing market's steep slide may be bottoming out, while consumer confidence unexpectedly increased. And with the record books closing on stock market trading for the year, stocks are estimated to post almost a 16% total return for 2006, as measured by the S&P 500 Index—the fourth annual consecutive gain after three straight years of losses. For the week, the S&P 500 rose 0.5o% to 1,418, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose 7 basis points to 4.70%, and the 30-year mortgage rate rose by 4 basis points to 5.72%.

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