Highlighted stocks include D.R. Horton (DHI), Bank of America (BAC) Wells Fargo (WFC), Weyerhaeuser (WY) and Masco (MAS).First, let's start with the good news. Nationwide, housing starts fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 466,000 in January, down 16.8% from a 560,000 rate in December and down 56.2% from a 1,064,000 rate a year ago. We are currently faced with an unprecedented glut of houses for sale, and building more of them simply does not make any economic sense.Building permits also fell, but not as sharply, to a 521,000 rate from 547,000 a year ago and 1,052,000 a year ago, drops of 4.8% for the month and 50.5% on a year-over-year basis. The higher level of permits might indicate a little bit of a rebound in starts in the coming months, but nothing very dramatic.The excess ...

Highlighted in this post are Kohl's (KSS), JC Penney (JCP), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC) and Capital One (COF).In January, the economy shed 598,000 jobs -- worse than the drop of 540,000 that was the consensus expectation of economists. The unemployment rate rose to 7.6% from 7.2% in December and is up from 4.9% a year ago.The revisions to prior months' data were equally horrific: December was revised to a loss of 577,000 jobs from a previously reported 524,000, and November was revised to a loss of 597,000 from 584,000. January is the normal month for benchmark revisions, and they go back and look at the numbers for the whole preceding year. Nine of 12 months were revised down for total additional job losses of 385,000.In all, the economy has shed 3.6 million jobs since the ...