No, the Architecture Billings Index does not track the number of stories on the tallest building in Billings, Montana. We're guessing that ABI has been holding steady at 5 for a few decades now (nope, we just looked it up: tallest building in Billings is the First Interstate Center and its 20 stories tall).
In the world of finance, the ABI provides a leading indicator of construction activity. It is put out each month by the American Institute of Architects. The index combines survey data related to billings (no, not that Billings again...as in bills sent out) by architecture firms. Basically, a high number of billings suggests that people are hiring a lot of architects.
Since the first step of building something is to have an architect design it, a high level for the ABI suggests the likelihood of strong construction activity down the road. The AIA estimates that the index provides a lead time of about 9 to 12 months, meaning a rise in the ABI is correlated with higher construction activity 9 to 12 months down the road.
The index is used to measure nonresidential construction, or projects that involve something else than places for people to live (like houses or apartment buildings).
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is speculation?6 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is speculation? wild bets crazy dreams invested upon the [Man placing bet and woman dreaming about money]
state lottery betting the ranch on red
drilling randomly on street corners hoping to find oil you don't want to do
that all right that's speculation the opposite of speculation in a sense is
well just real investing that is doing research on a company or an industry
finding the megatrend it feeds into and doing the math on its earnings and [Man completing math work]
realizing that the company will in fact in two years earn more like five bucks a
share rather than three bucks a share that well everyone on Wall Street ie the
stock brokers are publishing and predicting speculation is just kind of
throwing money at things on a wing and a prayer and you know hoping for that
miracle yeah but doesn't usually happen so just be an investor
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