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Economy in Brief
U.S. Energy Prices Ease Broadly
The price of regular gasoline eased to $2.85 per gallon (+53.8% y/y) in the week ended April 12...
U.S. Government Budget Deficit Widens During March
The U.S. Treasury Department reported a federal budget deficit of $659.6 billion during March...
FIBER: Industrial Commodity Prices Improve Modestly
The FIBER Industrial Materials Price Index increased 0.9% during the four weeks ended April 9...
EMU Retail Sales Jump, Regaining Some of the January Drop
February finds EU retail sales and motor vehicle registration rebounding...
U.S. PPI Posts Broad-Based Strength in March
The Producer Price Index for final demand jumped 1.0% (4.2% y/y) during March...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
Monetary Policy Blunder: Not Managing Economic & Financial Outcomes Equally
Monetary Policy at a Crossroad: Policymakers Need to Break Promise of Easy Money to Avoid Boom-Bust
State Coincident Indexes in January
Data Surprises, Markets and COVID
by Tom Moeller April 1, 2015
The value of construction put-in-place slipped 0.1% during February following a 1.7% drop in January, revised from -1.1%. No change had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey.
Private construction activity gained 0.2% (1.8% y/y) after its 1.1% January drop. Nonresidential building activity improved 0.5% (5.9% y/y). Office construction rose 2.7% (22.8% y/y) but commercial building fell 2.4% (+13.1% y/y). Multi-retail declined 3.1% (-1.7% y/y). Residential building slipped 0.2% (-2.1% y/y), reversing a 0.2% January rise. Single-family building fell 1.4% (+9.7% y/y) while multi-family construction jumped 4.1% (31.5% y/y). Spending on improvements edged 0.3% higher (-28.4% y/y).
Public sector building activity eased 0.8% (+3.1% y/y) following a 3.2% drop. Nonresidential building fell 0.8% (+2.9% y/y) but commercial construction rebounded 12.0% (26.5% y/y) after an 8.4% drop. Power construction fell 16.0% (-19.7% y/y) while highways and streets construction edged 0.2% lower (+2.8% y/y). Construction here amounts to 32% of public sector building 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 (%) | Feb | Jan | Dec | Feb Y/Y | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | -0.1 | -1.7 | 1.0 | 2.1 | 6.1 | 5.7 | 9.2 |
Private | 0.2 | -1.1 | 0.9 | 1.8 | 8.0 | 10.1 | 16.0 |
Residential | -0.2 | 0.2 | 0.8 | -2.1 | 5.1 | 20.4 | 14.4 |
Nonresidential | 0.5 | -2.4 | 1.1 | 5.9 | 11.2 | 0.6 | 17.5 |
Public | -0.8 | -3.2 | 1.3 | 3.1 | 1.5 | -3.5 | -2.8 |