Quikrete Industry Dashboard: Starts up

The latest version of the Quikrete Industry Dashboard, containing the major macroeconomic metrics relevant to the hardware and building supply industry, shows evidence of an active week of government reports.

The most dramatic movement (not counting BLDR's 116% annual increase on the stock chart) appears in housing starts, both single-family starts and total starts jumped more than 11% in November. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of total housing starts increased to 1.679 million – that’s the highest figure since March, then the pace rose to 1.725 million.

Also new on the Dashboard are the advanced November stats for NAICS 444 sales and the October stats for NAICS 44413 (hardware stores) sales. The latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show November sales of Building material and garden equipment and supplies businesses up from a year ago, but down slightly from October.

Elsewhere on the Quikrete Industry Dashboard, the Stock Roundup displays six ticker symbols in the growth quadrant, up for the year and the month, led by BLDR's dramatic growth.

Coming next: the Conference Board will report its closely watched Consumer Confidence Index Dec. 22.