December Construction Spending

Updated 31-Jan-07 10:40 ET

About this release

Highlights

December construction spending -0.4% (-1.4% yoy).

Key Factors

Revisions left an improved 0.1% November gain as October fell at a stronger -0.8% rate.
Residential spending fell -1.6%, in line with the -1.5% six month average. -12.5% yoy. Half the weight of total spending.
Business spending rose 0.9% and stands 14.5% higher from a year ago.
Public spending rose 06% to leave a very healthy 10.5% yoy gain.

Big Picture

Vastly different factors driving the 3 components of construction spending: residential, business and public spending. Business structural investment has surged over the last year and leads the components by a large margin in yoy growth. Residential spending is plunging and stands -13% lower than a year ago. Public spending is motoring along at 11% yoy. Residential provides more than half the weight in the index and leaves the overall measure in decline at -1.4% yoy.

Category	Dec	Nov	Oct	Sep	Aug
Nominal (Current) Dollars
Total Construction	-0.4%	0.1	-0.8	-0.8	0.0
Private	-0.8	-0.5	-1.3	-1.0	-0.1
Residential	-1.6	-1.4	-1.5	-1.3	-1.6
Nonresidential	0.9	1.4	-1.0	-0.5	3.0
Public	0.6	2.2	0.9	0.1	0.1

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Release Details

Construction Spending

Importance (A-F): This release merits a D.
Source: The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce.
Release Time: 10:00 ET on the first business day of the month (data for two months prior).
Raw Data Available At: http://www.census.gov/const/www/c30index.html.

The construction spending report is broken down between residential, non-residential, and public expenditures on new construction. The monthly changes are both volatile and subject to huge revisions, so this report rarely has any market impact. Only trends extending over three months or more can be viewed as significant.

The spending figures are in both nominal and real (inflation adjusted) dollars. The real figures for residential and nonresidential spending are used by economists to forecast the investment component of quarterly GDP. The annualized percent changes between the quarterly averages of these two components match up well with residential investment and commercial structure changes in the GDP accounts.