The accompanying table shows how Nelson-Farrar indexes have changed over the period, 1996-1998, for selected basically nonmetallic building materials.
Data are included for the overall nonmetallic group, five nonmetallic materials, and iron castings.
Building brick, concrete ingredients, and concrete products indexes showed the greatest changes during the period.
Building brick changed from 951.4 in the first quarter of 1996 to 993.5 in the fourth quarter of 1998. Concrete ingredients, showing the greatest gains of the three, changed from 728.8 in the first quarter to 794.9 in the fourth quarter of the period tested. During the same period concrete products changed from 622.7 to 670.0.
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Fireclay brick and iron castings showed more moderate changes, although none of the changes in the indexes were drastic. The Fireclay brick index rose from 1146.4 to 1188.0 over the 3-year period. Iron castings changed from 1093.3 to 1115.
The smallest index change occurred in the clay products category, changing from 766.0 in the first quarter of 1996 to 784.4 in the fourth quarter of 1998.
The final category, the overall nonmetallic index, changed from 700.1 to a high of 737.3 during the four quarter of 1998.
