Despite its recent slide, we look for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil -- the benchmark for U.S. oil pricing -- to trade steadily between $92 and $97 per barrel into summer. Additional wild swings are to be expected, but they’ll be short-lived.

Volatility in oil prices doesn’t indicate a fundamental imbalance in supply and demand. Rather, it’s the product of the increasingly large role hedge funds and speculators are playing in oil trading. A majority of contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the main market for WTI futures contracts, are now held by these so-called nonfinancial players. So when renewed political instability in Europe started spooking financial markets two weeks ago, traders piled out of crude positions and WTI promptly fell about $15/barrel.

As for gasoline, the outlook is mixed. We see the national average price of regular unleaded gasoline easing a bit further heading into Memorial Day, the traditional start of the summer driving season. But in the western U.S., gasoline prices are bucking the trend -- regular unleaded has managed to climb about 20¢ even as the national average fell.

The national average is down about 22¢ from the recent peak average price of $3.93 -- reached on April 5 -- on the heels of tumbling oil prices. But there are still many factors, such as refinery outages, further turmoil in the Middle East and the beginning of summer vacation season, that could reverse the recent downturn. Any hint of renewed tension involving Iran would have a particularly outsized effect, so keep an eye on next week’s round of nuclear talks between Tehran and Western powers.

For truckers and other consumers of diesel fuel, there’s also been a bit of relief lately. At $4.02 per gallon, diesel has edged down from its recent high. But the drop has been small, and prices are unlikely to fall much further. Even a modest rebound for crude oil would send diesel right back up.

Meanwhile, natural gas will stay relatively low, despite production cutbacks by drillers -- good news for consumers and businesses that rely on it for cooking or for the production of chemicals and other goods. Attempts by gas producers to whittle down the huge oversupply have perked gas prices up, to about $2.61 per million British thermal units, from a recent low of $1.87. Rising demand from electric utilities that are switching from coal to gas to generate power should help prop up prices this summer, but abundant supplies should keep prices under $3.

But the increased consumption by utilities also should trim stocks enough by fall to set the stage for modestly higher gas prices during the 2012-2013 heating season.

Housing will continue to make a slow recovery in 2012, as low interest rates lure buyers into the market and a turnaround in prices in the coming months helps convince people that the worst of the housing crisis is past.

The sharp drop in housing starts in March, though a surprise, does not presage a broad downward trend. A steep decline in apartment construction, which had shown strong gains in recent months, accounts for nearly all of the drop-off in starts, and essentially all of the decrease in multifamily starts came in just one region, the South. Starts of single-family homes were virtually flat. Though that's not positive news for home builders, it doesn't signal a major slowdown, either.

Improvement in the housing industry will be modest, however, and the sector will remain on the sidelines in terms of economic growth -- not the key player it usually is during recoveries and expansions. Home construction will account for only 3% or less of GDP in 2012, down from 6% before the crisis, as home starts rise but remain far below the average for economic recoveries. So they'll also be of little help in the way of job creation.

Look for housing starts to reach 720,000 this year, up from 607,000 in 2011, thanks largely to a big jump in multifamily building despite the drop in March. That's a far cry from the 2 million starts a year racked up before the bubble burst.

Home prices should finally begin a slow climb by midyear or so, as buyers become convinced that the bottom for prices has been reached. Between now and then, national average prices may drop a few more percentage points but will likely make that back by the end of the year. One sign that this turnaround in prices is near: Home prices rose slightly in February for the first time in 10 months, after adjusting seasonally for the slow rate of wintertime sales.

In fact, prices already have been rising in 38 states, with the problem states of California, Nevada, Florida, Arizona and Michigan acting as a drag on the market. The increase in those states will help buoy consumer spending by homeowners, who have been waiting for a turnaround to stabilize household balance sheets hammered by a 33% fall in home prices since 2006.

Look for existing-home sales to edge up about 3% in 2012, to 4.4 million -- about twice last year's gain. A similar improvement is likely for new-home sales, which will reach 320,000 or so, but that's far from the 1 million a year sold before home prices started sliding in 2006. New-home sales have been picking up since December, and in March the inventory of unsold homes fell to a 40-year low of 144,000, pointing to more construction ahead.

Expect retail sales to grow 6% this year, slightly slower than last year's 7.4% gain as lackluster income growth weighs down consumer spending later this year. Factors that pushed sales higher in the first quarter are beginning to fade, with April retail sales growing just 0.1% over the previous month, compared with a 0.7% gain in March. Warm weather in the first quarter, along with an early Easter holiday, shifted some seasonal spending from April to March, and lower oil prices pushed down spending at gasoline stations. Home improvement centers saw the biggest warm weather payback, with sales falling 1.8% in April from the previous month. Clothing sales were down 0.7% for the same reason.

Core retail sales will continue to show strength, despite slower overall sales growth. Core retail sales, which exclude auto sales as well as home improvement and gasoline sales, grew 0.4% in April, compared with a 0.5% gain in March. Core sales typically provide a better clue to overall consumer spending trends than total retail sales do.

Lower gasoline prices and easier credit terms for consumers should boost retail sales growth, particularly in the next few months. Indeed, their impact has already been felt. With gas prices falling 2.6% in April, consumers had more money available to spend on clothing, furniture and other goods and services. The upshot: Sales at gas stations slipped by 0.3% from the previous month, while overall retail sales rose. Consumers' addition of $5.2 billion in revolving debt in March indicates their willingness to use credit cards to pay for purchases. Look for the use of credit to creep higher throughout the year as terms on cards are loosened by banks competing for customers.

The main risk to continued growth is stagnant income growth. Wages grew just 0.3% in March, helping to slow the rate of consumer spending growth. While this is good for the savings rate, which climbed to 3.8% in March, it's likely to show up as slower retail sales growth later in the second quarter. A better employment environment should result in higher wages in the near future, but if it doesn't, retail sales growth at levels similar to those of the first quarter will be unsustainable.

The trade deficit isn’t likely to widen as much this year as March figures might indicate. Most of the big March increase -- a 14% monthly jump -- was payback for a large drop in the deficit in February due to one-time factors: the late Chinese New Year holiday, which limited supplies from China, and a brief pause in exploding U.S. auto sales. Car buyers were back on the prowl in March, putting monthly imports of vehicles, parts and engines $1.2 billion higher than in February.

Look for about an 11% increase in the annual trade deficit as U.S. consumer spending stays strong, pushing import growth ahead of export expansion. Odds are the deficit will climb over the $600-billion mark by the end of 2012, as U.S. growth accelerates faster than that of some top trading partners. Though trade was likely a net positive for the economy in the first quarter, it may be a drag on GDP later in the second half of the year, with imports continuing to rise faster than exports.

Exports will increase by about 8% this year, a slower pace than last year, with Europe in the midst of a recession and white-hot growth in emerging markets cooling. Exports grew 2.9% in March, more than the 0.1% gain in February, but lower demand for U.S. goods is inevitable amid slower global growth. Though first-quarter exports to Europe rose 8.5% from year-earlier levels, they won’t maintain that pace. Exports to Canada and Mexico were up 10.7% in the quarter, a pace that’s likely to continue as the North American neighbors benefit from the growing strength of the U.S. economy.

Imports, meanwhile, will grow by about 9% this year. The $11.6-billion jump in imports in March was the largest on record, but was due to a sharp decline in imports the month before. The 7.6% March increase in imported consumer goods signals that U.S. consumer spending remains solid, and oil imports will continue to rise as the summer driving season approaches. The trade deficit with China will hit another record this year after climbing 12% in March. Imports from China grew 9.3% in the first three months of the year, compared to the same period a year ago.