Construction Grade

Shaded areas indicate periods of inferred exuberance. Real house prices have risen much more steeply in the past year than in the run-up to the Great Recession. The Exuberance Index in the bottom panel tests market temperature and the confidence upper bound is the abnormality threshold. Current readings indicate U.S. housing showing signs of exuberance for more than five quarters through Q3 2021.
Dallas Federal Reserve Rings a Housing-Bubble Alarm
Recent acceleration of already speeding housing price increases are reviving mortgage-backed securities and have tripped the early-warning thresholds of some novel statistical tools being monitored post-Great-Recession.
March 31, 2022
Russian Oil Ban
What Biden’s Ban on Russian Oil Imports will Mean at the Pump
March 8, 2022
Cu Sofi The Euclid Chemical Company
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Macrofibers Cut Cost from The Super Bowl’s SoFi Stadium
February 11, 2022
Cu Climate Change Adobe Stock Images By Felix Mizioznikov
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: How Climate Change is Challenging Concrete
January 21, 2022
November 2021 Ppi Agc
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: ‘Runaway’ Construction Input Prices Crush Contractor Profit
December 17, 2021
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Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Doosan Pushes Into Dozer Market
December 10, 2021
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Caterpillar Plans to Expand Electrification and Energy Offerings at CES 2024
Those attending the Consumer Electronics Show 2024 in Las Vegas, NV, will meet the full force of the company's "The Power of Possible" campaign in their almost 9.600 sq ft floor exhibit, running from January 9 - 12.
November 28, 2023
The Spot-r Sensor.
The Practical Wearable Construction Technology Contractors Need to Learn About Right Now
Some construction wearable technologies can make construction software available hands-free but most extend dedicated software products for safety and productivity.
November 27, 2023
The World of Concrete will celebrate its 50th year during the World of Concrete 2024 show.
World of Concrete Celebrates 50 Years
Join us and the whole of the concrete industry as World of Concrete celebrates 50 years!
November 27, 2023
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Cu Rebar Det Screening Eagle Technologies
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Compare Rebar Detection Methods
Also among the most-read stories: OSHA’s COVID vaccination standard faces stiff legal challenge, is the infrastructure act’s $17B for ports enough to restore the supply chain?, how tech can positioning construction to overcome market challenges
December 3, 2021
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OSHA’s COVID Vaccination Standard Faces Stiff Legal Challenge as Stakes Rise
With COVID-19 infections and deaths ramping up on pace to match last year’s winter surge, enforcement of the emergency temporary standard for workplaces is in the hands of federal courts that are expected to act with urgency to match the emergency
November 23, 2021
Cu Laborthreat I Stock Getty Images
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Skilled Labor Shortage Threatens Housing Supply and Affordability
Also among the most-read stories: balance sheet leverage against inflation, supply chain and workforce issues; next steps for the infrastructure act, construction is No. 1 target in ransomware attacks, 7 reasons to hire military veterans for your crew
November 19, 2021
Cu 2022 Silverado Chevrolet
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Chevy Leads the 2022 Silverado Pickup Line with E-Lockers
Also among the most-read stories: Volvo launches 5 new electric loaders and excavators, construction cost forecast issues a challenge, 11 tips to protect your company from cyber threats, Trimble releases scanner for robot dog
October 22, 2021
092021 Housing Starts Permits
Global Warming Joins Forces with the Pandemic Attempting to Squash Construction in September
Home starts are still running strong, but how much damage will creeping mortgage interest rates add to the nefarious agenda of the natural forces arrayed against home construction?
October 21, 2021
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Construction Backlog and Economic Forecast Bow to Persistent Supply Crisis
Associated Builders and Contractors’ Construction Backlog Indicator and Construction Confidence Index have been falling as U.S. economic forecasts are trimmed in the face of the pandemic’s unrelenting choke hold on supply of virtually everything
October 15, 2021
Cu Dewalt Dewalt Industrial Tool Co
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: The DeWalt POWERSTACK 20V MAX Compact Battery
Most-read construction stories include: are you vibrating your concrete too much?, the business case for a diverse construction workforce, PCA's roadmap to carbon neutrality, beware new risks of unexpected taxes and material stockpiling
October 15, 2021
Cu Jd Electric Backhoe2
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Deere Unveils Its First Electric Backhoe
Most-read construction stories include union construction apprentices’ wages rival bachelor's degrees, should you hire friends and family? COVID vaccine-mandate protests shut down Australian construction, preservation techniques strengthen roadways
October 1, 2021
Cu High Suicide Rates Workwear Guru
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: Deere VP Explains the Hitachi Excavator JV Dissolution
Most-read construction stories include which construction workers need a COVID vaccine, OSHA taking steps to combat hazards of extreme heat, act now to avoid missing Section 179 tax deductions, why construction-worker suicide rates are sky high
September 24, 2021
Cu Vbc Katerra Volumetric Building Companies
Top 10 Construction Stories This Week: VBC Approved to Buy Troubled Katerra Assets
Most-read construction stories include Hawbaker paying record $21M restitution for Davis Bacon violations, AEC firms 2X more likely to get ransomware attacks, ultra-high-performance concrete coming, is infrastructure resistance really about the deficit?
August 13, 2021
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Flop Back to Budget Restraint Betrays Senate Indifference to Infrastructure
The ‘government doesn’t work’ platform is plain as day when self-styled ‘budget hawks’ revive to circle the infrastructure bill after four years of spending on other priorities like drunken sailors
August 6, 2021
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that adding $40 billion of IRS funding would add $103 billion in federal revenue.
Senators Short Infrastructure Funding to Protect Tax Evaders
Bipartisan senators negotiating a $1.2 trillion hard infrastructure bill eschew paying for it with deficit spending, but choose to restrict unemployment insurance rather than enforce IRS law to raise adequate revenues
July 30, 2021
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Falling Lumber Prices Offer Anti-Inflation Assurance, If Not (Yet) Lower Costs
Framing lumber prices down a third over the past month are still sky high and contractors aren’t dropping estimates yet, but the correction demonstrates encouraging dynamics on how the economy is emerging from COVID lockdown
June 25, 2021
April 2021 Construction Spending
US Construction Spending Lifted Modestly by Tempered April Home-Building Growth
In the fifth straight month of declining nonresidential outlays, signs of a turnaround surface in office, commercial and lodging segments, backlogs, architecture billings and post-pandemic emergence
June 2, 2021
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How Biden is Expected to Raise Taxes to Fight COVID-19 and Its Economic Battering
The 2017 tax act eroded US economic resources that are now necessary to rescue our economy from the impact of the pandemic's accompanying recession; here are some ways President Biden will propose to roll back some of its give-aways
January 25, 2021
Doosan Infracore
Hyundai could Finalize a Purchase of Doosan Infracore by Year’s End
Deal faces potential challenges from Korea’s monopoly regulations, and the fate of Doosan Bobcat is uncertain
December 11, 2020
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Fed Chair Jerome Powell Calls For Stimulus on the Morning Trump Flip-Flop-Flips on Negotiations
UPDATED 10/7/2020 -- Powell warns weakening employment presents 'tragic' risk of doing too little to prevent recession, as construction backlogs weaken, and the president ends, then reopens stimulus negotiations
October 6, 2020
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House Approves Continuing Resolution that Funds Highway Bill through 2021
The House of Representatives approved by a 359-to-57 vote a resolution that would fund federal government programs beginning through December 11, and extend surface transportation funding legislation through fiscal 2021
September 24, 2020
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Why Contractors Risk Getting Stuck With the Bill for the Social Security Payroll Tax Deferral
The cost:benefit analysis of President Trump’s campaign-season tax ‘loan’ for employees is convincing big employers to opt out, but the program holds a special risk to construction firms
September 18, 2020
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Vandalism of Black Foreman’s Office Stops Work at Las Vegas Convention Center Jobsite
Latest crime in a rash of "racially motivated damage" on construction sites helps explain why an industry starving for labor employs just half of the available black workers
August 27, 2020
Closed Sears Store With Label Scar Over Entrance, Hudson Valley Mall, Kingston, Ny
Amazon.com on the Verge of Pouring Money into Mall Remodeling
The e-commerce giant is talking to the nation’s largest mall owner about filling empty anchor-store space to complete its plan to deliver purchases as fast as you can drive to the store
August 11, 2020
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Treasury Confirms Paycheck Protection Loans Under $2M are in “Good Faith”
New Treasury Department guidance provides safe harbor for firms that received loans of less than $2 million, clarifies repayment from firms that received more and don’t meet good-faith standard
May 15, 2020
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House and White House Fighting for Highway Spending as Coronavirus Stimulus
Senate Republicans openly defiant about supporting citizens and states after bathing corporations in record stimulus spending
May 11, 2020
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Contractors Take Lion’s Share of the First Round of Paycheck Protection Loans
UPDATED April 24, 2020 -- We know more about obstacles to the smallest businesses getting these forgivable funds just in time for a second round of PPP funding coming to replenish the pot
April 23, 2020
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Fed Cuts Rates Half a Point to Combat Coronavirus Fear
Wall-Street selloff continues after rare inter-meeting move that slashed the federal funds rate more than any single action since the financial crisis
March 3, 2020
The autonomous Built Robotics machines Sunstate is renting today.
Meet Some of Today's Working Construction Robots
Disappointed that our Jetsons childhood hasn't yet matured into flying cars? Take heart, construction robots working around us today are a good sign that those condos in space aren't far off
February 20, 2020
Regionally, the Southwest recorded the highest growth rates for the first quarter of 2019 at 4.8%.
Construction Lets GDP Down in Q1 2019
Real US GDP grew 3.1% in the first quarter lead by strength in finance and insurance, retail trade and health care and social assistance
July 29, 2019
The 2.3% average annual economic growth of the current decade-long expansion compares with 2.9% during expansion from late 2001 to 2007, and 3.6% in the 10-year expansion ended in early 2001.
US GDP Growth Slowed in Q2 2019; 2018 Revised Down to 2.9%
Second quarter gross domestic product growth beat consensus forecasts but data is not encouraging. Here’s what it might mean for interest rates
July 26, 2019
With the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act of 2017 delivering a drop in 2018 corporate tax revenue of $92 billion, Over the next decade, the CBO projects the gap between Federal outlays and revenues will be large and persistent.
Economy Looks Solid; Here’s Why the Fed Plans to Risk a Rate Cut Anyway
An ‘insurance cut’ sugar high may be able to stretch the longest US recovery in history but politics tainting the decision obscure the action’s proven risk
July 22, 2019
Over 12 months, this index of nonresidential building planning is down 10.1%, suggesting a slowdown in construction activity through 2019.
Nonresidential ‘Momentum’ Increases to 10% Below Year-Ago Level
But declining trend in planning activity for nonresidential construction has not yet impinged on actual construction spending year-to-date
July 15, 2019