Daily Data Flow: Stocks Slip on Europe Concerns; More Housing on Market; Euro Struggling

Stocks Slip on Europe Concerns (Bloomberg)
After a brief rise yesterday, U.S. stocks today fell, as concerns about Europe and its debt crisis continued to weigh on the minds of investors. “There’s going to be on-again, off-again, troublesome news out of Europe and occasionally it’s going to cause the market some disruption,” Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Milwaukee-based RW Baird & Co., said. “The U.S. economy can do somewhat better, but it will probably be in a slow growth mode for most of 2013. That’s how it’s been over the last four years and the market has done quite well in that environment.”

More Housing on Market (CNBC)
The number of homes for sale is rising for the first time in half a year. “Tight inventory has been a critical issue for the housing market: The limited supply of homes has fueled bidding wars and has meant that buyers have little to choose from and agents have little to sell,” said Trulia.com’s Jed Kolko. “Inventory has been tightening because construction levels are still low, adding little new housing stock, and homeowners are waiting to sell until they have more positive equity. This inventory spiral been especially severe since prices bottomed.”

Euro Struggling (Reuters)
The aforementioned euro zone debt crisis, exemplified most recently by the Cyprus bank ordeal, has been hurting that continental currency, the euro. “The uncertain situation in Cyprus and the dour euro zone economic data are the key issues here and these are two reasons not to be buying the euro at this time,” said Greg Moore, currency strategist at TD Securities in Toronto.