Steel Markets
September 3, 2013
Construction Put in Place - July 2013
Written by Peter Wright
On the first working day of each month the Commerce Department releases construction expenditure data for the month before last. For example, on September 3rd the July data was released. This data known as CPIP, (Construction put in place) differs from commercially available data which to the best of our knowledge always measures construction starts. Such commercially available information is supplied by McGraw Hill / Dodge, Reed Construction and Industrial Information Resources.
The problem with starts is that no matter how big the project is, all the value or square footage is added to the data base the month that ground is broken. This can result in such information extremely spiky, an example of which was when four multi-billion dollar nuclear reactors were entered in 2012.
