US construction spending slides 1.9% in September, now at $2.18 trillion

US construction spending landed at $2.18 trillion in September, down 1.9% from August's revised $2.22 trillion, the US Census Bureau said Monday. That's also 2.7% below where it stood a year earlier — a clear sign the building boom is losing steam.

Private construction did most of the damage. It fell 2.4% month over month to $1.63 trillion, while public construction held nearly flat at $546 billion, edging down just 0.1% from August.

Zoom out and the picture doesn't get prettier. Through the first nine months of the year, construction spending totaled $1.64 trillion — a 2.9% drop from the $1.69 trillion logged over the same stretch last year.

The pullback arrived alongside mixed signals from America's factories. The ISM Manufacturing PMI rose to 55.5% in October from 54.5%, while S&P Global's reading slipped to 54.9 from 55.6 — both still north of the 50 mark that separates growth from contraction.