Clichés are often true and it is the case that a picture can be worth a thousand words.

Following a contraction in 2018, total construction starts in the U.S .grew by 4.0% to reach $795 billion. Residential starts spent a second year in contraction, falling by 3.8% in 2019, with both the single and multi-family segments slipping. Nonresidential starts rose by 5.3% supported by groundbreaking for several large factories. Civil engineering starts increased by 15.9%, supported by new power infrastructure projects, particularly in Q3 2019.

America’s Jobs Jump an Impressive +225,000 in Latest Month U.S. jobs creation in January, on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis and as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), was a strikingly good +225,000. While +225,000 was down somewhat from the +269,000 figure for January of last year, it was well ahead of 2019’s monthly average of +175,000.

Almost Half of 2019’s Mega Project Initiations Were in the South U.S. countrywide construction starts in 2019 had a greater than normal weighting of 'mega' projects. ‘Megas’ are projects valued at $1.0 billion or more each.

Total U.S. Construction Spending Stayed Stuck at $1.3 Trillion in 2019 As the sum of its monthly not seasonally adjusted (NSA) figures, the Census Bureau has calculated that total U.S. put-in-place construction in 2019 was $1.303 trillion. The total dollar volume last year was -0.3%, or flat, compared with 2018. (2018 had been +3.3% relative to 2017.)

What’s the Fascination with Stock Markets? There are publicly-traded companies engaged directly in the construction industry, and others with close ties to the construction sector, that have obvious reasons to be interested in how stock markets are performing. As just one example, executives of such firms may have compensation packages that rise commensurate with increases in their companies’ share prices.