Housing data...

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Still, strategists couldn’t help but shake their heads at the 18.9% decline in housing starts to a 625,000 annual rate, the lowest rate of starts since the Commerce Department began keeping the data in 1949. “We’re sitting at the high end of the trading range, and price levels are very very lofty,” says Maryann Hurley, bond market strategist at D.A. Davidson. “With the Fed upcoming and prices at the high end of the trading range, we’re having a difficult time going further.”

... Building permits were down 15.6% to their slowest rate since 1960.

That doesn’t mean this won’t take more time: it will. “Census Bureau data indicate that household formation will average 1.2 million per year in the time ahead, which means that starts are now low enough to begin absorbing the excess housing stock–people need shelter,” he writes. “Unfortunately, the problem is so sizable that the natural fix will take time–several years; the excess supply is close to 2.0 million or so.”

blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2008/12/16/bonds-stagnate-on-mind-numbin