Posts Tagged ‘US’
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).
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%.
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, July 6th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
June was an excellent month for overall net jobs creation in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Total employment in the nation rose by +850,000 positions.
The construction sector, however, was left out of the bonanza. Staffing among the ‘hard hat’ contingent contracted by -7,000 jobs. The major plus and minus employment shifts within construction occurred with residential specialty contractors (i.e., sub-contractors), +13,000 jobs; nonresidential specialty contractors, -15,000 jobs; and heavy and civil general contractors, -11,000 jobs.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, construct, Construction, Construction industry, jobless, jobs, Labor, lumber, market, recovery, US
Comments Off on Construction Left Out of June’s U.S. Big Jobs Advance
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
The ten graphs in this article update the latest housing starts information for the U.S. and Canada through May 2021. Both countries are currently experiencing new home building booms. Super low mortgage and secondary-financing interest rates, a build-up of savings while being locked down during the pandemic and the pronounced shift to working from home and escaping from crowded downtown cores have been some of the major contributors to the uptick in new accommodation demand.
U.S. housing ‘starts’ appear to have settled in around 1.6 million units per month, seasonally adjusted and annualized (SAAR). The Canadian monthly average seems to be about 270,000 units, although twice this year the number has risen much higher, 308,000 in January and 333,000 in March.
The case for saying the ‘boom’ has been stronger in Canada than in the U.S. can be made in simple fashion. Monthly average starts on a SAAR basis in the U.S. year to date (Jan-May 2021) are an impressive +22.5%. The comparable change for Canada, though, is an even more outstanding +48.3%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction, Economy, Housing, US
Comments Off on Latest U.S. and Canadian Housing Starts in 10 Graphs
Friday, May 8th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
Unemployment Rate at 14.7% could have been Worse
It could have been worse. I thought it would be worse. Next month’s figure will probably be worse.
I’m speaking of April’s U.S. seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). It came in at 14.7%, after being just 4.4% in March.
If you’re looking for a figure that’s jaw-dropping, turn to the total number of jobs in the country. From March to April, there was a decline of 20.5 million.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, construct, Construction, Construction industry, coronavirus, COVID-19, Economic, Economics, Economist, job, jobless, jobs, money, recovery, residential, shareknowledge, US
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Friday, May 3rd, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
Explanation of Quarterly and Annual GDP Percent Change Calculations
The mathematics employed to calculate ‘real’ gross domestic product (GDP) levels and rates of change are more convoluted than one might suppose. For a new quarter, GDP line items (e.g., consumption, investment, government spending and exports/imports), after removing the effects of inflation, are added up and adjusted for seasonality. They are also expressed as if they are annual results – i.e., the quarterly figures are ‘blown up’ to a corresponding annual level.
The ‘official’ GDP figure for any year is the average of the levels for the four quarters within that year and the year-to-year growth rate is the percentage change between annual averages.
The figure most often quoted by the press, however, is a quarter-to-quarter GDP growth rate annualized. Such a number compares latest-quarter GDP with previous-quarter GDP to derive a percentage change. Then that percentage change is compounded to the power of four (i.e., ‘annualized’) to account for four quarters in a year.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, construct, ConstructConnect, Economist, Economy, GDP, US
Comments Off on Prolonged Streak of U.S. Beating Canada in Q/Q GDP Growth
Wednesday, February 6th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
There are 51 metropolitan statistical areas (CMAs) in the United States with population levels above one million. Drawing from ConstructConnect’s data pool for those 51 cities, Table 1 ranks the Top 25 markets in America for educational facility construction starts last year. (Map 1 showcases the Top 20.)
| Educational Facility Construction Starts |
| Top 25 Markets among Biggest U.S. Cities* |
| 2018 |
| Rank by |
|
|
|
|
|
| 2018 |
|
2017 |
2018 |
|
% Change |
| $ Value |
City / MSA |
($billions) |
|
2018/2017 |
| 1 |
New York, NY-NJ |
$3.290 |
$3.367 |
|
2.3% |
| 2 |
Dallas-Ft Worth, TX |
$2.355 |
$3.100 |
|
31.7% |
| 3 |
Los Angeles, CA |
$2.416 |
$2.626 |
|
8.7% |
| 4 |
Houston, TX |
$2.778 |
$2.592 |
|
-6.7% |
| 5 |
Seattle-Tacoma, WA |
$1.970 |
$1.560 |
|
-20.8% |
| 6 |
Chicago, IL |
$1.188 |
$1.219 |
|
2.6% |
| 7 |
Boston, MA |
$2.023 |
$1.217 |
|
-39.8% |
| 8 |
San Francisco – Oakland, CA |
$1.014 |
$1.145 |
|
13.0% |
| 9 |
Portland, OR-WA |
$0.370 |
$1.117 |
|
201.8% |
| 10 |
Philadelphia, PA |
$0.790 |
$1.090 |
|
38.0% |
| 11 |
Atlanta, GA |
$0.807 |
$0.991 |
|
22.8% |
| 12 |
Washington, DC – VA – MD – WV |
$1.279 |
$0.966 |
|
-24.5% |
| 13 |
San Diego, CA |
$0.543 |
$0.907 |
|
67.2% |
| 14 |
Baltimore, MD |
$0.917 |
$0.866 |
|
-5.6% |
| 15 |
Sacramento, CA |
$0.291 |
$0.852 |
|
193.0% |
| 16 |
Austin, TX |
$0.961 |
$0.762 |
|
-20.7% |
| 17 |
San Antonio, TX |
$1.142 |
$0.735 |
|
-35.6% |
| 18 |
Las Vegas, NV |
$0.286 |
$0.654 |
|
128.7% |
| 19 |
Orlando, FL |
$0.640 |
$0.613 |
|
-4.1% |
| 20 |
Salt Lake City, UT |
$0.660 |
$0.609 |
|
-7.7% |
| 21 |
Cleveland, OH |
$0.369 |
$0.586 |
|
59.0% |
| 22 |
Raleigh, NC |
$0.372 |
$0.574 |
|
54.3% |
| 23 |
Denver, CO |
$0.422 |
$0.573 |
|
35.8% |
| 24 |
Minneapolis – St Paul, MN – WI |
$0.843 |
$0.561 |
|
-33.4% |
| 25 |
Providence, RI-MA |
$0.306 |
$0.551 |
|
80.1% |
|
|
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|
|
| *There are 51 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. with populations exceeding onemillion. |
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| Data source and table: ConstructConnect ‘Insight’. |
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economic, Economist, Growth, house, Housing, market, material, US
Comments Off on Top 25 U.S. Cities for School Construction Starts
Friday, January 25th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
U.S. Census Bureau workers are off the job due to Washington’s partial funding shutdown. As a result, current statistics on housing starts, retail purchases and foreign trade are not available.
This is no minor matter. It will be difficult to accurately calculate national output – i.e., the important gross domestic product (GDP) measure – without reliable data on many of its key components. GDP growth, or lack thereof, is one key determinant of Federal Reserve interest rate moves. The Fed will struggle over whether to be ‘hawkish’, ‘dovish’, or stick with neutral.
Furthermore, the ramifications of economic data omissions are not solely limited to the U.S.
The U.S. and China are engaged in a trade skirmish, with tariffs on Chinese goods entering the U.S. slated to increase to 25% from 10% at the end of March, if there is no resolution. The U.S. has been running a huge trade deficit with China for years. In many months, it has been in a range of 40% to 50% of the total U.S. merchandise trade shortfall with all nations.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Economics, Economist, Economy, election, employ, employment, Growth, home, house, Housing, job, jobless, Labor, market, material, money, real estate, residential, shutdown, US
Comments Off on Ramifications of U.S. Shutdown Ripple outwards to China and Canada
Monday, December 17th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
The tail that is attempting to wag the dog these days is the stock market. With only two weeks remaining in 2018, America’s major stock market indices have moved, at best, sideways versus close-of-year 2017. The Dow Jones Industrial Index (DJI) is currently -0.5% relative to its closing level on December 31 of last year. The S&P 500 is -0.9% and NASDAQ, -2.4%.
North of the border, the Toronto Stock Exchange is -9.0% compared with year-end 2017.
The FANG stocks have been leading the retreat in equity prices. Since the summer of this year, the share price of Facebook, which has experienced confidentiality problems galore, is -29.2%; Amazon, the retail sector’s ‘disruptor-in-chief’, is -19.9%; Netflix is -34.1%; and Google/Alphabet, -16.2%. Even Apple has moved out of favor, -26.3%. On August 2nd, Apple became the world’s first trillion-dollar company, but of course that valuation no longer stands.
The Federal Reserve has been paying attention. Earlier, the Chairman of the Fed was adamant that he wanted to see the federal funds rate return to its ‘equilibrium’ or neutral level of 3.00%. Neutrality is when prevailing interest rates are neither too stimulatory nor too contractionary.
The current level of the federal funds rate is in a range of 2.00% to 2.25%. The likelihood is still high there will be another 25 basis-point (where 100 basis points equals 1.00%) increase later in this month of December. The schedule for next year, however, is no longer as firmly established. Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell, has stated that future action on interest rates will be ‘data driven’.
By the way, the stock markets also really don’t like the tariff skirmish with China. Whenever there is even a hint of a resolution of that dispute, investors respond ecstatically.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, build, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, Economics, Economist, Growth, home, US
Comments Off on 13 Mid-December Economic Nuggets
Friday, December 14th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
The accompanying table records the top 10 project starts in the U.S. for November 2018.
There are several reasons for highlighting upcoming large projects. Such jobs have often received a fair amount of media coverage. Therefore, people in the industry are on the lookout for when jobsite work actually gets underway. And, as showcase projects, they highlight geographically where major construction projects are proceeding.
Also, total construction activity is comprised of many small and medium-sized projects and a limited number of large developments. But the largest projects, simply by their nature, can dramatically affect total dollar and square footage volumes. In other words, the timing and size of these projects have an exaggerated influence on market forecasts.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, Construction, Construction industry, Economic, Economy, Growth, US
Comments Off on Top 10 Project Starts in the U.S. – November 2018
Tuesday, August 21st, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
There’s nothing complicated about today’s article. It simply examines, with the aid of the accompanying table, the latest 12-month performances of the share prices of nearly 40 well-known companies.
The 39 firms have been arranged alphabetically according to their primary industrial activity. Not all sectors are represented. One obvious omission is ‘health care’. CVS and Walgreens-Boots under ‘General Retail’ will have to serve as proxies.
But there has been an attempt to capture companies with direct or indirect (i.e., through capital spending on manufacturing facilities, retail space, etc.) ties to construction.
For each company, the two right-hand, percentage-change columns compare the current share price with: (1) the latest 12-month low; and (2) the latest 12-month high.
With respect to 12-month lows, percentage changes that are 50.0% or more have been shaded lightly in gray.
With respect to 12-month highs, percentage changes that are -20.0% or more steeply negative have been shaded in red.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, Labor, market, oil, US
Comments Off on Equity Price Patterns of 39 Companies with Ties to Construction
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