By Daniela Silberstein Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures erased their advance after builders unexpectedly broke ground on fewer homes in October. D.R. Horton Inc., the largest U.S. homebuilder by revenue, retreated after the Commerce Department said housing starts dropped 11 percent. Salesforce.com Inc., the largest seller of Internet-based customer-management software, and Autodesk Inc. sank at least 4.1 percent after forecasting lower profits than analysts’ estimated. Futures on the S&P 500 expiring next month fell 0.2 percent to 1,105.5 as of 8:48 a.m. in New York after earlier gaining as much as 0.3 percent. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 0.2 percent to 10,381. Nasdaq-100 Index futures dropped 0.3 percent to 1,803. The S&P 500 has jumped 64 percent from a 12-year low in March as a four-quarter contraction in the world’s largest economy ended. The eight-month rally has pushed the index’s valuation to about 22.3 times its companies’ reported earnings, the highest level since 2002, weekly data compiled by Bloomberg show. U.S. stocks gained for a third session yesterday as a rebound in metal prices boosted commodity producers, overshadowing a smaller-than-forecast increase in industrial production. To contact the reporter on this story: Daniela Silberstein in Zurich at dsilberstei2@bloomberg.net.

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