Construction + Economy

I’ve recently written about how dual crises in the Suez Canal / Red Sea and the Panama Canal have created chaos, rising cargo prices, and delaying supply chains. More on these dual canal crises can be found here. Now there is some good news for global shipping. As the pandemic eased, global shipping demand outstripped [...]

  Simultaneous and separate crises are occurring at the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal simultaneously. These are the two most important global shipping canals. The Panama Canal is suffering from a drought in the lake that supplies its water. The drought is likely caused and made more severe by climate change. The Suez Canal [...]

It’s widely known that the office real estate market has been severely hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, and in fact, continues to get worse even after the pandemic is over. This is largely due to the persistence of work-from-home for a significant portion of the workforce. The national office vacancy rate rose to a record-breaking 19.6% in [...]

  Container shipping rates for important global trade routes have spiked this week due to the combination of Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, and the recent air strikes against Houthi bases, by the US and UK. There are now shipping industry fears of a prolonged disruption to Red Sea trade routes, one of the busiest [...]

  The World Bank forecasted that 5.2% annual growth for China in 2023 will slow to 4.5% in 2024, and down to 4.3% in 2025. China’s growth has fluctuated dramatically in recent years, ranged from 2.2% in 2020 to 8.4% in 2021 and 3% in 2022. China’s economy is feeling the drag following severe pandemic [...]

Many of the acquisitions in the lighting industry are driven by private equity firms. Over the 5.5 years between January 2018 and June 2023, private equity (PE) firms have acquired more lighting manufacturers in the US & Canada than either publicly traded companies or private companies that are not controlled by a PE firm. PE [...]

  For better and worse, the lighting industry is largely part of the construction industry. It’s that time of year to look at the residential and commercial construction forecasts for 2024. RESIDENTIAL: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) projects existing-home sales will rise by 13.5% to 4.71 million units sold in 2024, from a total [...]

National nonresidential construction spending ticked up 0.1% in October to a seasonally adjusted annualized basis of $1.1 trillion, according to a new Associated Builders and Contractors analysis.Manufacturing and infrastructure investments fueled a 0.1% uptick in October, but warehouse and distribution center spending declined. The small gain marks the 17th consecutive month of growth, primarily due to activity [...]

  According to US Census Bureau data, September national nonresidential construction spending grew 0.3% marketing the 16th consecutive month of growth. The growth is primarily attributed to publicly financed construction. Some private categories, including power, commercial, amusement, and recreation saw month-over-month increases, however, publicly financed construction accounted for more than 72% of September’s rise. Federal [...]