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Canadian Building Permits (Frustrating entry)

There are statistics that are worth following, and then there are statistics that tell you absolutely nothing… building permits (like aerospace orders) are so lumpy that an average analysis over several months is required to “say anything” about the state of the Canadian building industry.

Bottom line new building permits in May were down 21% from the previous month… now in March they were up 18% and in April they were up 9%. In the non-residential segment building permits fell 33%!

This kind of volatility is troublesome, and year on year analysis (2010 Vs. 2011) is also not very informative. However, one thing can be said, that the overall average (excluding 2008 recession) remains “in-line” with expectations. Non-residential levels are actually very low, and are testing levels last seen during the recession of 2008 (and yet GDP growth in Q1/11 was 3.9%).

Maybe smarter people than me can draw some interesting conclusion as to why so few non-residential permits were issued, I cannot, but observe that reality and wonder…

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