Economic Watch: Home Sales, Consumer Sentiment Rise as Fed Mulls Rake Hike

There are increasing signs the U.S. economy is gaining momentum in the first quarter of the year with gains in home sales and consumer confidence, but it is also fueling speculation that interest rates could head higher as soon as next month.

Sales of new homes surged 3.7% in January from the month before to an annual rate of 555,000, according to a Commerce Department report released Friday. That figure is also 5.5% better than for the same time a year ago.

The gains were less than a consensus estimate from analysts, but continued to point to a strengthening housing market despite higher prices and mortgage rates, according to Reuters.

The department revised downward its 2016 total to 561,000 new home sales, but it was still the best year since 2007 and a 12% improvement from 2015.

This follows a report from a couple of days earlier showing existing-home sales stepped out to a fast start in 2017, surpassing a recent cyclical high and increasing in January to the fastest pace in almost a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, expanded 3.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.69 million in January, better than many analysts were expecting.

The pace is 3.8% higher than a year ago and surpasses November 2016 as the strongest since February 2007. The conjecture is that unseasonably mild winter weather throughout much of the East and South may be getting the spring selling season off to an early start.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said January's sales gain signals resilience among consumers even in a rising interest rate environment.

"Much of the country saw robust sales activity last month as strong hiring and improved consumer confidence at the end of last year appear to ...Read the rest of this story

Ruan names new chief information officer

Ruan Transportation Management Systems announced that Dan Greteman has joined Ruan's executive team as vice president and chief information officer.

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Startup Firm Unveils Prototype Autonomous Truck

Prototype autonomous truck in Nevada desert. Photo: Embark

Yet another startup tech firm has rolled into the autonomous truck arena. San Mateo, Calif.-based Embark publicly revealed its prototype self-driving truck on Feb. 24.

The company, which gained approval from the State of Nevada earlier this year to begin testing its truck on public roads, said its self-driving technology enables a truck “to drive from exit to exit on the freeway without any human input.”

Embark said its tractor-trailer setup uses a combination of radars, cameras and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) depth sensors “to perceive the world around it.” The data points captured are processed via a form of Artificial Intelligence known as Deep Neural Nets (DNNs) that “allow the truck to learn from its own experience— much like humans learn from practice.”

“Analyzing terabyte upon terabyte of real-world data, Embark's DNNs have learned how to see through glare, fog and darkness on their own,” said Alex Rodrigues, CEO and co-founder of Embark. “We've programmed them with a set of rules to help safely navigate most situations, how to safely learn from the unexpected, and how to apply that experience to new situations going forward.”

Embark's truck is built specifically for “long, simple stretches of freeway driving between cities, rather than all aspects of driving.”

Like other autonomous truck designs, including the Freightliner Inspiration truck and the Otto (owned by Uber) truck, Embark's computerized truck is meant to be handed off to a human driver once it heads off the highway, who will then navigate local streets to the destination. “A human driver will still touch every load, but with Embark they're able to move more loads per day, handing off hundreds of miles of freeway driving to their robot partners,” is how the company put it.

Rodrigues said he was inspired to launch Embark after ...Read the rest of this story

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Nissan TITAN pickup line now complete

The addition of King Cab configurations to the 2017 TITAN and TITAN XD full-size pickup earlier this month at the 2017 Chicago Auto Show fills out the OEMs model lineup for its redesigned light truck.

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HDT Announces 2017 Top 20 Products

Heavy Duty Trucking magazine announced its 2017 Top 20 Products, highlighting the most innovative, significant and useful new product announcements from the previous year.

The winners are published in the February issue. Awards will be presented during individual ceremonies at the ATA's Technology & Maintenance Council annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, Feb. 27-March 2.

Each year, HDT's editors spend a lot of time going to press conferences and combing through news releases on the latest new products for trucking. At the end of the year, they embark on a process to identify the very best of the past year's introductions for the Top 20 Products.

Editors sift through all of the new product announcements that appeared in the magazine or on the Truckinginfo.com website over the course of 2016 to winnow down the list. Products are chosen based on the level of innovation, ability to address significant industry issues, and potential benefit to the bottom line.

A panel of HDT current and former Truck Fleet Innovators and maintenance executives active in the Technology & Maintenance Council are then consulted to arrive at the final 20.

Entire vehicles are not included, and products must be commercially available or scheduled to become commercially available this year.

The resulting Top 20 products are listed in alphabetical order by company name:

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