Construction Expenditures through February 2017

February data for construction put in place (CPIP) was released by the Department of Commerce on Monday March 3rd 2017. Once again this was not such a great report. Total construction is still growing though more slowly. Private construction has picked up the pace in the last three months but state and local construction is contracting faster. Any contractions that we report in this analysis are not seasonal as we are considering year/year comparisons.

At SMU we analyze the CPIP data with the intent of providing a clear description of activity that we believe accounts for over 30 percent of total steel consumption. Please see the end of this report for more detail on how we perform this analysis and structure of the data but in particular note that we are presenting NONE seasonally adjusted numbers. Much of what you will see in the press may differ from our presentation because others are basing their comments on adjusted values. Our rational is that construction is highly seasonal and our businesses function in a seasonal world. Also we don’t understand how the adjustments are made neither do we trust them.