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US consumer confidence has again reached the highest level in four-and-a-half years, according to a survey. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose to 73.7 in November from 73.1 in October. Both are the best readings since February 2008. The gain was largely due to improvements in the US jobs market. The index is seen as an important economic indicator because consumer spending accounts for about 70% of overall economic activity in the US. Separate data from Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller showed that house prices increased in September in most major US cities, adding more evidence of a housing recovery. And another survey indicated that US companies in October increased their orders of machinery and equipment by the largest amount in five months, another hopeful sign for economic growth in the world’s largest economy. Orders for core capital goods, considered a proxy for business investment, rose 1.7% in October, the Commerce Department said, the best showing since May. Orders in this category had slowed since spring, acting as a drag on overall economic growth.

US new home sales fell for the fourth month a row in August, figures have shown, indicating continuing weakness in the housing market. Sales fell 2.3% in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 295,000, the Commerce Department said. The new figures are less than half the 700,000 figure experts say must be built to sustain a healthy market, and represent a six-month low. High unemployment and a weak housing market are undermining the US recovery. An oversupply of used homes and a large stock of foreclosed housing is also putting a strain on the market.

President Obama on Tuesday nominated John E. Bryson for commerce secretary, a choice that drew plaudits from business and environmental groups, reflecting his uncommon career in both worlds. But Senate Republicans threatened to block confirmation of the nominee over a trade dispute. Mr. Obama’s announcement at the White House, with Mr. Bryson and the current commerce secretary, Gary Locke, at his side, capped his search for an executive to add a business outlook to his inner circle. The president said Mr. Bryson’s diverse background recommended him to lead the widely varied Commerce Department, and particularly to spur clean energy projects and American exports generally. “John is going to be an important part of my economic team, promoting American business and American products across the globe,” Mr. Obama said. “By working with companies here at home, and representing America’s interests abroad, I’m confident that he’s going to help us meet the goal that I set of doubling our nation’s exports.” Mr. Bryson, 67, was chairman and chief executive of a Southern California electric utility conglomerate, Edison International, for nearly two decades until 2008. Previously he was best known as a founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation’s leading environmental organizations. His name surfaced after Mr. Obama’s election among those under consideration for energy secretary, a job that went to Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and physicist and another proponent of clean energy. A Californian, Mr. Bryson is on the boards of old-line corporations like Boeing — where he served with William M. Daley, now the White House chief of staff — and Disney, as well as clean-technology startups like Coda Automotive, a maker of electric cars in Santa Monica, Calif., and BrightSource Energy, a solar power company in Oakland. An adviser in Jerry Brown’s first stint as California governor in the 1970s, Mr. Bryson was the head of the California Public Utilities Commission and the State Water Resources Control Board. Groups often at odds with each other were united in praise for Mr. Bryson. Endorsement came not only from the Natural Resources Defense Council, whose president, Frances Beinecke, said Mr. Bryson’s career “underscores the strong linkage between economic and environmental progress,” but from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers as well.