Quikrete Industry Dashboard

The latest Quikrete Industry reveals updates for Wall Street stocks and coast-to-coast gas prices during a relatively quiet week for data points.

A deluge of numbers will fall into spreadsheets next week, with updates on residential construction, monthly retail sales and existing home sales.

On the current version of the dashboard, it’s still possible to claim that gas prices are down from a year ago, but just barely. And at $3.29 for a gallon of regular, according to the American Automobile Association, gas prices are four cents higher than a month ago.

The Stock Watch showed improvement over last week, with seven ticker symbols out of 10 ahead for the month. However, DE is the lone symbol ahead for the year.

Elsewhere, as previously reported, the national unemployment rate declined ever so slightly to 3.5 percent, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate has held steady in a narrow range between 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent since March.

The latest numbers show employment in construction increased by 28,000 in December, as specialty trade contractors added 17,000 jobs. Construction employment increased by an average of 19,000 per month in 2022, little different than the average of 16,000 per month in 2021.

The Associated Builders and Contractors released the following analysis:

“This employment report indicates that contractors collectively remain in expansion mode despite rising costs of capital and fears of recession,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Consistent with upbeat assessments of construction activity late last year, nonresidential contractors continue to ramp up staffing in the context of elevated backlog. In, ABC‘s Construction Confidence Index contractors indicated that both sales and employment would continue to rise over the next six months.”

Also, housing starts in November slipped 0.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.427 million compared to the revised October estimate of 1.434 million, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported.

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Coming next: Advanced monthly sales estimates for NAICS 444 businesses in the month of December will be released by the Department of Commerce on Jan. 18, followed in subsequent days by starts and existing home sales.