Quikrete Industry Dashboard - (Week 12, 2025)
The busy Week 12, 2025 edition of the Quikrete Industry Dashboard shows U.S. average gas prices nationwide have ticked upward from last month ($3.16) and now sits at $3.12. Pump prices are still down, substantially, compared to last year's nationwide average of $3.52 in mid-March 2024, per AAA's daily data.
This week's Dashboard also reveals the latest retail data released by the U.S. government. Overall retail numbers grew but dipped among building supply purveyors.
As HBSDealer shared earlier this week:
"February's NAICS 444 sales, which comprise building material suppliers as well as garden equipment and supplies dealers, are down year-over-year and also month-over-month. Unadjusted Feb. 2025 sales for NAICS 444 tallied $31.859 billion, down from $33.097 billion registered in January 2025. Year-over-year, February 2025's figures are down compared to Feb. 2024's (unadjusted) sales of $33.820 billion."
Week 12 saw fresh housing starts data as well, which showed progress in February after a slow start to 2025. The data shows:
"Privately-owned housing starts in Feb. 2025 clocked in at 1,501,000, which is is 11.2 percent above the revised January estimate of 1,350,000. Year-over-year, Feb. 2025's starts are slightly lower (2.9 percent) than the February 2024 rate of 1,546,000.
Single-family housing starts also jumped month-over-month in February, coming in at 1,108,000. This figure is 11.4 percent above the revised January figure of 995,000. Year-over-year, however, Feb. 2025's numbers are slightly under February 2024's performance of 1,134,000 single-family starts."
Existing home sales figures were also higher than expected, with HBSDealer's coverage highlighting:
"Total existing-home sales – completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – rose 4.2 percent from January 2025 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.26 million in February. Year-over-year, sales dipped 1.2 percent (down from 4.31 million in February 2024)."
Finally, in building materials industry stock news, Beacon (+30.6%), which was finally acquired by QXO this week in a massive $11 billion deal, is the only stock on our list that's gained measurable traction over the past year. In fact, Tractor Supply (+0.5%) is the only other stock on our list that is up year-over-year.
Over the past month, Beacon (+3.6%) and Weyerhaeuser (+1.2%) are the only stocks to have gone up instead of down.
See the up-to-the minute stock prices of 30 industry companies tracked by HBSDealer here.