US industrial output rises but housing starts fall

Economic data on Friday were mixed.

In the US, industrial production rose 0.3 percent in December. This contributed to a 6.8 percent increase for the fourth quarter as a whole, the largest quarterly increase since the second quarter of 2010.

However, the preliminary January reading of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index came in at 80.4, down from 82.5 in December.

Homebuilding eased in December. Housing starts fell 9.8 percent last month while building permits fell 3.0 percent. However, the declines came after starts had jumped to a six-year high in November.

Elsewhere, construction production in the euro area fell 0.6 percent in November, the third consecutive decline.

However, UK retail sales rose 2.6 percent in December. From the previous year, sales rose 5.3 percent, the biggest increase since October 2004.

In Japan, the government assessed the economy as “recovering at a moderate pace” in a report on Friday as another report showed that department store sales rose 1.7 percent in December from a year earlier.

However, Japanese consumer confidence worsened in December. The Cabinet Office's consumer confidence index fell to 41.3 last month from 42.5 in November.