The bond market improved further today on weak stock market performance.  Stocks are down on a poor quarterly earnings report from Bank of America and global market skittishness on continued news that the government of China is going to clamp down on lenders to try to slow growth and get in front of inflation.  In economic news, December Housing starts were down 4% to 557,000 units on an annualized basis.  They had been expected to be up to 575,000 units on an annualized basis.  Most analysts attributed this to a colder than expected December.  Building permits surged 10.9% to an annualized 653,000 units vs expections of a decrease to 580,000 annualized units.  The Producer Price Index (PPI), a measure of inflation at the wholesale level was up .2% vs expectations of  no change but the Core Rate (excluding food and energy) was unchanged vs expectations of a .5% increase.