Dive Brief:

• March construction materials prices offered good instruction on the downside of weighted cumulative price reports.
• Of 11 product categories considered key construction inputs, eight were down – including softwood lumber – but three rose enough to pull the overall report up 0.5%.
• The increases were in nonferrous wire and cable, concrete products and the group that includes asphalt, tar roofing and siding.

Dive Insight:

Associated Builders and Contractors, the industry group that usually takes the lead in the monthly materials price report, says we should not take the March jump as indicative of what's to come. Chief Economist Anirban Basu said, "Only a handful of categories were actually associated with a meaningful uptick in prices.”