Recent Updates
- Euro area: Flash Consumer Confidence (Apr)
- Ireland: Producer & Wholesale Price Indexes (Mar)
- UK: Capital Issuance (Mar)
- Spain: Trade in Constant Prices, Trade in Goods (Feb)
- Germany: Federal Budget, PPI, Monthly Tax Revenue (Mar), Short-term Indicator (Feb), Public Sector Finance (Q4)
- Colombia: Imports (Feb); Brazil: IPCA-15 (Apr)
- Turkey: Non-Domestic PPI, House Sales, Central Government and Domestic Debt by Instrument, External Debt by Lender, Domestic
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
German PPI Accelerates
The German year-on-year PPI has generally been decelerating since early 2017...
U.S. Leading Economic Indicators Signal Continued Expansion
The Conference Board's Composite Index of Leading Economic Indicators increased 0.3% during March...
Philadelphia Fed Factory Conditions Improve; Prices Jump
The Philadelphia Fed reported that its General Factory Sector Business Conditions Index rose to 23.2 during April...
U.S. Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance Are Little Changed
Initial unemployment insurance claims slipped to 232,000 (-6.1% y/y) during the week ended April 14...
U.K. Retail Sales Fall
U.K. GDP is expected to cool its jets when the first quarter GDP number is released...
by Tom Moeller December 2, 2013
The value of construction put-in-place gained 0.8% in October (5.3% y/y) following a 0.3% September slip. A 0.4% rise in building activity had been expected. The September figures, released for the first time, were contained in this release due to the federal government shutdown.
A 3.9% jump (2.3% y/y) in the value of public sector building activity led the increase in construction activity during October. Improvement here has persisted since the spring. The October rise reflected an 8.8% gain (-14.1% y/y) in office building as well as an 8.5% lift (-3.7% y/y) in education. Power construction also jumped 8.0% (10.8% y/y) but spending on highways & streets inched up just 0.6% (9.2% y/y). Spending here accounts for 29% of total public sector construction activity.
Private sector construction activity slipped 0.5% (+6.6% y/y) in October and it's been moving sideways since May. Residential building was off 0.6% m/m but remained up 17.8% y/y. Spending on improvements fell 1.2% (+13.2% y/y) and has been down sharply during three of the last four months. Single-family home building activity slipped 0.6% (+17.8% y/y) to the lowest level in three months but multi-family building activity jumped 2.2%, up by more than one-third y/y. Nonresidential building activity slipped 0.5% (-3.4% y/y). It's loss of forward momentum has been broad-based but most notable in power (-18.8% y/y) and communication (-16.5% y/y) construction activity.
The construction spending figures are in Haver's USECON database and the expectations figure is contained in the AS1REPNA database.
Construction Put in Place (%) | Oct | Sep | Aug | Y/Y | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 0.8 | -0.3 | 0.1 | 5.3 | 8.1 | -1.9 | -11.2 |
Private | -0.5 | 0.4 | -0.1 | 6.6 | 14.4 | 0.2 | -15.2 |
Residential | -0.6 | 1.7 | -0.3 | 17.8 | 14.6 | 1.9 | -2.9 |
Nonresidential | -0.5 | -1.0 | 0.1 | -3.4 | 14.3 | -1.4 | -24.0 |
Public | 3.9 | -1.9 | 0.6 | 2.3 | -2.9 | -5.4 | -3.6 |