Housing Starts Fall 11.4% in October

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. housing starts plunged 11.4 percent in October, erasing a big gain the month before, the government reported on Wednesday.

The decline was the biggest monthly drop since January 1994 and the starts pace was the lowest since April.

Ground breaking for new homes slid to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.603 million units last month from a downwardly revised 1.810 million rate in September. But building permits, an indication of builder confidence, rose 1.7 percent to 1.763 million units from 1.733 million units the preceding month.