January Construction Spending

Updated 09-Mar-10 19:30 ET

Highlights

Total construction expenditures declined 0.6% in January after falling 1.2% in December.
The drop was exactly in-line with the consensus expectation.

As expected, the increase in housing starts boosted residential construction expenditures as spending rose 1.3%.
Nonresidential construction dropped 2.1% in January, as all sectors, with the exception of power, posted losses.
Office and commercial construction declined 1.6% and 0.5% respectively and are down roughly 34% each over the last year.
Lodging construction fell 9.8% in January as hotels remain over supplied.
Public construction declined by 0.7%.

These data gets less attention than deserved. The data go directly into the GDP report. Residential construction has dropped to about 3% of GDP, while nonresidential construction is about 4% of GDP.

Category	JAN	DEC	NOV	OCT	SEP
Nominal (Current) Dollars
Total Construction	-0.6%	-1.2%	-2.5%	1.5%	-1.6%
Private	-0.6%	-1.7%	-2.6%	2.7%	-2.4%
Residential	1.3%	-2.8%	-2.5%	11.8%	-0.6%
Nonresidential	-2.1%	-0.7%	-2.7%	-3.6%	-3.7%
Public	-0.7%	-0.4%	-2.2%	-0.9%	-0.1%