‘Stimulus’ passes but
construction funds are tight.
The biggest
market-moving report of the week was the Institute for Supply Management (ISM)’s
non-manufacturing index, with a reading of 44.6 out of 100, which “indicates
contraction within the nonmanufacturing sector for January 2008. Nonnmanufacturing business activity
contracted for the first time since March 2003.” It is impossible to know how
representative this indicator is of actual conditions, however: ISM does not
report how many responses it received and does not weight responses by firm
size or the magnitude of the increases or decreases. Also, the survey is less
than a decade old, so there is no prior experience with predicting downturns. Respondents listed the following items relevant to construction as up in price: copper wire, fuel and fuel
surcharges, and steel products. Wallboard was listed as down in price.