Posts Tagged ‘steel’
Tuesday, September 5th, 2023
Article source: ConstructConnect
The U.S. economy grew by +2.0% in the first quarter of this year and by +2.4% in the second quarter. Those figures are the month-to-month annualized percentage changes of ‘real’ (i.e., inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) dollars.
One should not, however, grow comfortable with the thought that all is well, and a slowdown or recession has been averted.
A key component of GDP is consumer spending, which is almost half comprised of retail sales. While total retail sales are not in deep distress, they are certainly not as buoyant as they were a year or so ago.
In fact, total current dollar retail sales have been flat for a year and a half (see Graph 1). On a year-over-year basis in the latest reported month, July 2023, they were +2.0%. With inflation still running over +3.0% y/y, the difference means ‘real’ total retail sales were slightly negative.
There is a wrinkle in this narrative. Total retail sales are being substantially suppressed by the weakness of receipts at gasoline stations, -20.8% y/y. Again, there is an inflation twist. The steep slide in petrol sales ties directly to a -19.9% y/y change in the price of gasoline, according to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data set.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, Economist, employment, Growth, Housing, interest rate, lumber, material, recovery, steel, tenders Comments Off on With Construction Not Immune, Retail Sales Speak of Slowdown
Thursday, July 15th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
A Compelling Megaproject Story
ConstructConnect announced today that June 2021’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential work, was $38.4 billion (green shaded box, Table 8 below), an increase of +14.4% vs May 2021’s $33.6 billion (originally reported as $32.5 billion).
![April’s Nonresidential Construction Starts -5.9% M/M & -16.8% Ytd April’s Nonresidential Construction Starts -5.9% M/M & -16.8% Ytd Graphic](https://i0.wp.com/www.constructconnect.com/hubfs/Blog%20Images%20and%20Media/2021-07-12-US-Nonresidential-Construction-Starts-June-2021.jpg?w=250&ssl=1)
Compared with June 2020, the latest month’s dollar volume of total nonresidential starts was -4.3%. On a year-to-date basis (i.e., Jan-Jun 2021/Jan-Jun 2020), total nonresidential starts have been -10.9%.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.constructconnect.com/hubfs/Blog%20Images%20and%20Media/industry-snapshot-june-2021.jpg?ssl=1)
View this information as an infographic
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Economic, Economist, Economy, employ, employment, Housing, interest rate, job, lumber, shareknowledge, steel, US Comments Off on June’s Nonresidential Construction Starts +14% M/M, But -11% YTD
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- The pandemic is upending previous notions about what is needed to deliver successful versus questionable business results. Take ‘word processing’ versus ‘meat processing’. The latter has seen numerous plant shutdowns due to congestion in the workplace and virus contagion. The former, in at least one special way, has been delivering spectacular results.
- For a decade or more, news media operations have come under attack for not moving quickly enough to embrace new technology. Stodgy print media has been a favorite target. Firms in the sector were moving online, although often tentatively. The difficulty for many in the industry was to find a digital business model that would be financially rewarding. Most have now settled on their own vision of the optimal balance between subscription and advertising revenues. And the process has evolved to just the right stage. Media companies, unlike many other enterprises in the economy, have been able to carry on with operations even under coronavirus duress. For media companies, working from home has been a relatively easy transition, having minimal impact on the compilation and dissemination of information.
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Tags: airlines, banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on From Within the Herd (June 1, 2020) – Word Processing vs Meat Processing
Friday, May 22nd, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- S. total retail sales turned in a shockingly bad performance in April. They were -15.1% month to month and -17.8% year over year. Among sub-categories, though, something happened that has been in the works for a while, but was remarkable to observe, nonetheless. ‘Nonstore retail sales’ (i.e., purchases made over the Internet and by way of e-auctions), for the first time in history, took over number one spot for share of total retail, at 21.1%. Second place went to ‘food and beverage stores’, 19.1%. Dropping to third, versus its usual frontrunner status, was the shopkeeper category, ‘motor vehicle and parts dealers’, 18.4%.
- Also, April’s grocery store sales were -13.1% month to month, after being +26.9% in March. A significant number of shoppers in March engaged in frenzied stockpiling. With the economy headed into a freeze, they were already seeing and anticipating further shortages – never mind that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Single seeds of hoarding can quickly grow to become pernicious weed patches of off-the-grid accumulations. April’s m/m decline in grocery store sales, though, suggests a dialed down urgency to build and maintain a home-inventory security blanket.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on The Economy under COVID-19: Notes from the Trenches (40)
Thursday, May 21st, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- Matters pertaining to who is owed what due to the coronavirus crisis will soon fully engage the legal and insurance professions. But there is a segment of the business community, ‒ although more truly it’s off to the side, keeping an eye on things (i.e., companies and governments) ‒ that is about to step into the spotlight. The weight of the world, and I don’t say that lightly, is about to descend on debt rating agencies.
- Standard & Poor’s (S&P), Moody’s, Fitch Group and others will be tasked with hair-raising responsibility. Debt is skyrocketing throughout the private and public sectors. A corporation or government receives a ratings downgrade (i.e., starting from Triple A and descending from there) when it is judged to be at greater risk of defaulting on its debt obligations (loans or bonds). The greater risk assessment forces it to pay more in carrying costs, regardless of whether the central bank is managing to keep its official interest rate low and stable.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on Notes from the Trenches (39)
Wednesday, May 20th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- Canada has been announcing its economic support measures piecemeal. First up was the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to provide income aid for individuals newly laid off or unable to find employment for a variety of reasons, including a need to stay home and look after children released from school attendance. Following in short order have been payroll supplements to help businesses survive, measures to assist students who won’t be able to find summer jobs, rent relief for commercial tenants in danger of defaulting and extra cash to be sent to seniors.
- Most recently, there has been the LEEFF (Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility) initiative, providing bridge financing for some of the nation’s largest corporations. To qualify, companies must agree to conditions placed on dividend payouts and executive compensation and to be on board with environmental cleanup goals. There’s also expansion of BCAP (the Business Credit Availability Program) to include more mid-sized firms. Canada’s fiscal deficit this year (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021) is expected to be -$250 billion.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on The Economy under COVID-19: Notes from the Trenches (38) (May 20)
Wednesday, May 20th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- The U.S. seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate in April was 14.7% and the not seasonally adjusted (NSA) figure was 14.4%. Both those numbers understate the true out-of-work situation in the country.
- Crucially, the labor force participation rate in the U.S. dropped from 62.6% in March to 60.0% in April (both NSA). When asked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in its ‘household’ survey if they were actively seeking work, 6.9 million individuals responded in the negative. They didn’t see any point. They didn’t believe they had any prospect, under coronavirus pandemic circumstances, of gaining a position at this time. Many of those respondents were young adults newly laid off in the hotel, restaurant and bar business. ‘Not seeking employment’ meant they were excluded from the labor pool. If the participation rate in April had stayed the same as in March, America’s NSA unemployment rate would have been 18.1%.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on Notes from the Trenches (37)
Friday, May 15th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- Apple and Google, through iOS and Android, operate the largest cell phone ‘ecosystems’ in North America. Those two firms are working jointly to further develop smart phone geo-locating technology to facilitate tracking the spread of COVID-19.
- Michael Bloomberg, of Bloomberg News and former-Mayor-of-New-York fame, has also committed his valuable time and considerable financial resources to developing a contact tracing program. A philanthropic arm of his business empire will be working closely with Johns Hopkins University and Medical Center.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on Notes from the Trenches (36)
Thursday, May 14th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- Now you have an excuse to eat them. French fries should more accurately be called Belgian fries. They were given the wrong name by American soldiers in World War I who mistakenly thought they were in France when they came across the new tasty use for potatoes. Over the past many decades, Belgium has been a leading exporter of the kinds of potatoes that make the best fries. But restaurant and fast-food demand has fallen off a cliff coincident with coronavirus quarantining and there are storehouses full of spuds that are in danger of spoiling by the end of June. The message has gone out in Belgium, and it’s being picked up in other countries, that families should double their French fry intake from one meal per week to two.
- Speaking of Belgium, it has one of the worst COVID-19 mortality rates among countries in the world, according to the authoritative website on the progress of the disease being maintained by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths per capita is considered the best gauge of how brutally a country is being ravaged by the coronavirus. (Statistics on the infection rate can be wonky.) In Belgium, the number of deaths per 100,000 population is currently 74.6. The figures for some other developed nations, in descending order, are as follows: Spain, 56.3; Italy, 50.0; United Kingdom, 47.1; France, 39.2; Sweden, 31.2; United States, 23.6; Canada, 12.7; and Germany, 9.1.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on Notes from the Trenches (35)
Wednesday, May 13th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- Spoiler alert: Don’t read the following two bullet points unless you’re okay with learning the outcome. The Kentucky Derby race for three-year-old horses is always held on the first Saturday in May. Well, that’s not entirely correct. In 1945, in the final days of the war effort, it was delayed until June. Then in this year, 2020, it’s also been postponed, until September 5, for only the second time ever. In its time slot in early May, NBC Sports broadcast a virtual race between 13 former Triple Crown Winners.
- The ‘Run for the Roses’ at Churchill Downs is called the most exciting two minutes in sports. Did that still hold true this year, when there wasn’t really anything on the line and the finish was governed by a set of algorithms based on past performances? It’s your call. Perhaps you were watching on May 2nd. If not, you can catch a replay of the broadcast on YouTube. I’ve seen it and even as a CGI event, nothing’s quite as nail-biting as a ‘final stretch’ run, especially when it features win, place and show positions captured by Secretariat, Citation and Seattle Slew ‒ equine royalty.
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Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders Comments Off on Notes from the Trenches (34)
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