Stocks Are Up Again

Stocks are higher after better than expected housing data and inflation data that showed the slowest price increases since February.

The Dow is up 41 points, the S&P 500 is up 4 points, and the Nasdaq is up 7 points.

The rise in U.S. stocks comes after equity markets around the world rallied overnight, with Societe Generale's Kit Juckes saying that risk is back on again.

The pace of housing starts jumped 15.7% in July to an annualized rate of 1.093 million, beating expectations for a pace of 965,000. Permits also jumped 8.1% to a pace of 1.052 million, in-line with expectations.

Inflation data from the BLS showed that "core" CPI, which excludes the cost of food and energy, rose 0.1% month-over-month in July. This was slightly less than the 0.2% increase expected by economists.

The headline CPI index rose 0.1% in July, in-line with expectations and the slowest pace since February.

In stock news, Home Depot shares were up as much as 4% on Tuesday after the home improvement retailer reported earnings and sales that topped expectations.

On a comparable-store basis, sales at Home depot jumped 5.89% in the second quarter, better than the 4.4% that was expected by economists.

Shares of fragrance maker Elizabeth Arden were down as much as 24% after reporting sales that widely missed expectations, with the company citing steeper than expected sales declines in its celebrity fragrances, particularly its Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift fragrances.

This chart from FRED shows the last three months of trading in the S&P 500, which shows that after a brief pullback in July, the benchmark index is again close to a record high.