October Construction Spending Falls

Well, despite bucking the the predictions that construction spending would fall the last two months - only to have construction spending rise - the weak housing market finally had enough negative affect to play a major roll in the decline of overall construction spending in October which sent spending down 0.8 percent to its lowest mark in two years. Private and non-residential building also finally took a misstep dropping 0.5 percent in October. This is the first decline since September 2006. Ian Shepherson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York was quoted as saying in a recent report "We think a sustained fall in nonresidential spending is now overdue, but one softish month in these volatile data is not conclusive evidence of anything." It is not all bad news though. State and federal government spending rose. This is the eight consecutive month for construction spending to rise in this segment. Public construction rose 0.8 percent and marked the all-time high at $295.1 billion for the month.