Quikrete Industry Dashboard: Starts and sales

Last week included some good news from the Dept. of Commerce. On Thursday it reported housing starts were up mid-single digits for both total starts and single-family starts.

Total starts increased 6.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.769 million. Single-fam starts were up 5.7% to 1.215 million.

Then, on Friday, the National Association of Realtors reported a drop in existing home sales for the month of February to rate of 6.02 million. 

In other recent metrics, NAICS 444 and 44413 are both up on an annual basis, and down – to varying degrees—on a month-to-month basis. (Note: NAICS 444 data is available through February, while the latest data for the hardware store subset NAICS 44413 is from January.)

Next up: The Conference Board will update the Consumer Confidence Index on March 29.