{"id":30552,"date":"2026-03-12T15:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/uncategorized\/30552\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:59:09","slug":"januarys-us-building-permits-missed-forecasts-reaching-1-376m-month-on-month-versus-the-expected-1-41m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/live-updates\/30552\/","title":{"rendered":"January\u2019s US building permits missed forecasts, reaching 1.376M month-on-month versus the expected 1.41M"},"content":{"rendered":"US building permits fell short of forecasts in January. The expected level was 1.41 million.\n\nThe actual reading came in at 1.376 million. This indicates permits were lower than the market estimate.\n\n<h3>Housing Starts Signal Bigger Headwinds<\/h3>\nThe January miss on building permits is an important signal that high borrowing costs are weighing on the housing sector. This data suggests future construction and economic activity might be weaker than previously thought. We should anticipate continued pressure on homebuilder stocks and related industries in the near term.\n\nThis slowdown in a key economic sector complicates the Federal Reserve&#8217;s position on interest rates. While recent February 2026 CPI data showed core inflation remains stubborn at over 3%, this housing weakness argues against further rate hikes. This suggests traders could position for a more dovish Fed by exploring call options on Treasury futures, anticipating that yields may fall.\n\nWe&#8217;ve seen this happen before. Looking back, the market slowdown we witnessed throughout 2024 when the 30-year mortgage rate consistently stayed above 7% showed how quickly sentiment can turn. Given that today&#8217;s rates are still elevated, this January permit data could be the start of a more significant contraction, making put options on homebuilder ETFs like ITB a strategy to consider for the next few months.\n\nThe conflict between slowing growth and persistent inflation creates significant uncertainty for the broader market. Such environments often lead to an increase in overall market volatility.\n\n<h3>Positioning For Higher Volatility<\/h3>\nTherefore, we believe purchasing call options on the VIX index could serve as an effective hedge against a potential market downturn in the coming weeks.\n\n<b><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/trade-now\/\">Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/myaccount.vtmarkets.com\/login\">start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b>\n<p>\r\n\r\n<p><strong>Start trading now &#8211; Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/trade-now\/\">here<\/a> to create your real VT Markets account <\/strong> <\/p>\r\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January US building permits missed forecasts, totaling 1.376 million versus expectations of 1.41 million, signaling weaker demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"josephine","author_link":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/author\/josephine\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarketsglobal.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}