Quikrete Industry Dashboard

The latest version of the Quikrete Industry Dashboard shows the continuation of year-over-year sales gains for NAICS 444, the hardware, lumberyard and building supply dealer category, and NAICS 44413, the hardware store subset.

The Advance Monthly Sales report from the U.S. Census Bureau was released Friday morning. Overall, it showed a slight decline for U.S. retail and food services sales for December compared to November, but up 2.9% compared to December 2019.

Once again, NAICS 444 sales marked a bright spot -- up 17.0% from the prior year. The only retail category with a larger increases was Nonstore retailers, which grew 19.2% in December

[Ed. note: The Census does not provide advance data for NAICS 44413 sales. The latest hardware store sales reading is from November.]

Elsewhere on the Dashboard, gas prices as measured by the AAA, are higher than the prior month, but lower than the prior year.

Next up for the dashboard: Housing starts are scheduled to be released on Jan. 21, followed by existing home sales on Jan. 22.