U.S. construction spending remains flat in January

U.S. construction spending remained flat in January, contrary to consensus expectations of modest growth of 0.3 percent. Part of the miss relative to the forecast stems from upward revisions to prior month’s data – construction spending for December was upwardly revised by one-tenth to 0.8 percent. Meanwhile, November data was downwardly revised a bit.

Delving into details, strength in public construction spending was greatly countered by a fall in private construction spending. The decline in the latter was driven by the non-residential category. Residential private construction spending rebounded modestly, led by single-family units. In the meantime, public sector construction spending rose 1.8 percent sequentially, slightly lower than expected. This was driven by the non-residential category, while residential construction spending fell for the second straight month.

“Overall, today’s construction spending report was weaker than expected, taking our structures, residential investment and public spending tracking estimates slightly lower. However, after rounding, our GDP tracker was left unchanged at 1.7 percent q/q saar”, added Barclays.

At 20:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at -9.64528. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

FxWirePro launches Absolute Return Managed Program. For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/invest