CPIP Data & Analysis

Each month the Commerce Department issues its construction put in place (CPIP) data, usually on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. November data was released on January 2nd. Construction put in place is based on spending work as it occurs, estimated for a given month from a sample of projects. In effect the value of a project is spread out from the project’s start to its completion. Construction starts data published by the Commerce Department for residential construction and by McGraw Hill/Dodge and Reed Construction for non-residential is completely different as in these cases the whole project is entered to the data base when ground is broken. The official CPIP press report gives no appreciation of trends on a historical basis and merely compares the current month with the previous one on a seasonally adjusted basis. The detail is hidden in the published data tables which we at SMU compile to provide a long term perspective. Our intent is to provide a rout map for those subscribers who are dependent on this industry to “Follow the money.” This is a very broad and complex subject therefore to make this monthly write up more comprehensible we are keeping the information format as consistent as possible.

Total Construction: Data is reported on both a seasonally adjusted and non-adjusted basis. In the SMU analysis we consider only the non-seasonally adjusted data and remove seasonality by the consideration of year over year (y/y) data. We also focus on rolling 3 and 12 months to remove the noise in single month numbers. Please note that the official news release from the Commerce Department which we include below may at first glance seem to conflict with the SMU analyses. This is because the government commentary is based on seasonally adjusted numbers.