Did anybody bother to take a look at the Weather we had in October? Construction is heavily influenced by inclement weather and the change from Septemeber to October was significant. How in the world could they expect anything but a decline? It will decline further as we move into the colder and wetter months.
They do seasonally adjust them, in other words they pump up the winter numbers by a factor, and lower the summer numbers by the identical factor so the annual total reflects reality. But they still assume a normal October, and we didn’t have a normal October weather-wise.
Incidentally, I don’t know about everywhere, but in Tennessee, the first have of November was warm and dry, so maybe next month it would be worth looking into whether the number will pop higher again.
Numbers are always seasonally adjusted.