4-4-17

Don’t like the year-over-year (yoy) Construction Spending percent change? Just wait until next month. It’s going to be worse!

The latest year over year construction spending through February is up 3.0% compared to Feb 2016.

March data yoy comparison is going to come in at or under 2%. But construction spending is increasing!

It just so happens March 2016 was an outstanding month. That lowers the yoy percent change, but March 2016 is the anomaly.

Yoy doesn’t indicate if this year is doing poorly or if that month last year was a great month.

Yoy doesn’t indicate what direction current spending is taking.

Yoy compares an unadjusted 2017 value to an upwardly adjusted 2016 value.

For the last 40 consecutive months the construction spending value has been revise UP. But not until after major news media gets to report that yoy construction spending did not meet expectations.

For the last 18 months the average adjustment to construction spending after the 1st release of data +2%.  

The yoy and mo/mo percentage change in the 1st release was understated every time.

For Q1 2017, yoy values are expected to range between 1.5% and 3.5%. 2017 is expected to finish the year up 6% over 2016.