The gap between permit and start
Every building starts with an embed — the steel hardware cast into concrete before a single wall rises. CAST tracks Simpson Strong-Tie embed sales across 34 states, 90 days before the market knows.
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The Embed Story
Why the world's biggest construction firms, banks, and investment houses care about a piece of steel
The Permit Lies
A permit is filed. Everyone sees it. But between that permit and the day construction actually starts, there is a black box — 30 to 180 days of silence. The builder could be waiting on financing. The site could be tied up in zoning. The project could be dead. The permit tells you nothing.
The Start Is Late
When construction finally "starts," the Census Bureau reports it. Headlines run. Stocks move. But by then, the concrete is already curing. The decision was made weeks ago. The money was already deployed. The start tells you what already happened.
The Embed Is the Signal
Before a single wall goes up, the builder buys the embed — the steel hardware from Simpson Strong-Tie that gets cast into wet concrete. Holdowns. Anchor bolts. Mudsill anchors. You cannot pour concrete without an embed. You cannot start construction without one. And Simpson ships them daily. The embed tells you what's about to happen.
The Math That Moves Money
The Secret Ingredient
The exact daily embed sales figure is proprietary — Simpson Strong-Tie data that only CAST subscribers see. But the direction of that signal tells you everything.
Every $1 in embed hardware correlates to ~$2,400 in total construction value. Multiply across 250 trading days and you're tracking tens of billions in predicted activity — 90 days before the Census Bureau reports it.
The number is ours. The edge is yours.
34
States tracked daily
90 Days
Ahead of Census Bureau reporting
$2,400
Construction value per $1 embed (NAHB)
Who Cares About the Embed
The multi-trillion dollar construction ecosystem runs on this signal
Homebuilders
D.R. Horton, Lennar, Pulte — know which markets are heating up before allocating land spend
Lumber Producers
Weyerhaeuser, LP — see demand forming before lumber orders spike
Steel Mills
Nucor, Steel Dynamics — watch the industrial/commercial split in real time
Banks
Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMC — construction lending decisions informed by forward data
REITs
Prologis, American Tower — track industrial and infrastructure starts geographically
Traders
If housing starts surprise, you already knew. If they miss, you already hedged.
Why No One Else Has This
The Census Bureau reports housing starts monthly. With a 4-6 week delay. The NAHB reports the Housing Market Index monthly. It's a survey of opinions. Building permits are public but tell you nothing about whether construction will actually happen.
No one tracks the embed.
Because no one thought to look between the permit and the start. The hardware supplier has the data. But they're a manufacturer, not an intelligence company. They don't know what they have.
Until now.
How CAST Works
01
Ingest
Every morning at 6:00 AM ET, we ingest the previous day's Simpson Strong-Tie embed sales file — geocoded to 50 states, categorized into product families.
02
Analyze
We aggregate, normalize, and compare against 90-day baselines. We detect product mix anomalies, state-level spikes, and category shifts.
03
Calculate
The CAST Index is computed — a single normalized number where 100 = baseline, >110 = boom, <90 = recession. Updated daily.
04
Deliver
Reports delivered via dashboard, Telegram, and email — 90 days before the Census Bureau, before the NAHB, before the market.
The gap where fortunes are made
See construction activity 90 days before the market. Know where the money is flowing before anyone else.