What Happened?
A number of stocks fell in the afternoon session after April CPI came in hot at 3.8% year-over-year, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield to 4.43% and effectively sealing higher-for-longer mortgage rates.
The 30-year fixed was at 6.45% earlier in the week, and reports revealed existing home sales growth fell below analyst expectations. April's median existing home price hit a record $417,700.
With CPI confirming inflation persistence, builders could not count on rate relief to revive demand. Homebuilders need two things to grow: affordable mortgage rates that bring buyers into the market and manageable input costs. Mortgage rates track 10-year Treasury yields almost directly; when yields rise on hot CPI, mortgage payments rise, and the share of households who qualify to buy shrinks.
Construction inputs, asphalt, plastics, lumber, equipment fuel, also tend to rise with general inflation. With sentiment at a seven-month low and over one-third of builders already cutting prices to move inventory, the CPI removes the rate-cut catalyst that would have restored buyer demand in the second half of the year.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks.
Among others, the following stocks were impacted:
- Construction and Maintenance Services company Concrete Pumping (NASDAQ: BBCP) fell 3.6%. Is now the time to buy Concrete Pumping? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
- Construction and Maintenance Services company APi (NYSE: APG) fell 2.4%. Is now the time to buy APi? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
Zooming In On Concrete Pumping (BBCP)
Concrete Pumping’s shares are somewhat volatile and have had 13 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 11 months ago when the stock dropped 15.6% on the news that the company reported weak first quarter 2025 results, which missed Wall Street's sales, operating profit, and earnings estimates.
In addition, its full-year revenue and EBITDA guidance fell short of Wall Street's estimates. Sales fell 12%, with commercial and residential construction delays, weather-related disruptions, and macroeconomic uncertainty dragging on performance. Full-year guidance reflected management's expectation that construction demand will not rebound until 2026. Overall, this was a weaker quarter.
Concrete Pumping is up 7.9% since the beginning of the year, and at $7.47 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $8.08 from May 2026. Despite the year-to-date gain, investors who bought $1,000 worth of Concrete Pumping’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at only $944.94.
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