WASHINGTON – The value of wholesale inventories fell by 0.1% in December while sales fell 0.3%, data released Tuesday morning by the U.S. Commerce Department showed.
Excluding the auto category, wholesale inventories would have been down 0.2% in December after a 0.4% decline in the previous month, an MNI calculation showed. Sales would have been down 0.6% in December if auto sales were excluded. This followed a 1.4% decrease in November.
The overall inventory-to-sales ratio held steady at 1.32 in December, still up sharply from 1.24 in December 2014.
The value of durable inventories fell 0.3% in the month, though auto inventories were up 0.3%. The remaining durables components were generally lower, with electrical and miscellaneous durables the only two categories to post gains. Nondurables inventories rose 0.1% on gains in most categories offset by a 7.8% decline in petroleum inventories and a 1.0% decline in alcohol inventories.
Durables goods sales were up 0.3% in December, led by a 2.5% jump in auto sales. The remaining durables sales components were mixed. Nondurable goods sales fell 0.9%, driven by a 4.5% drop in petroleum sales. As with the durable components, there was a mix of movements for the nondurables categories.
Factory inventories were already reported as up 0.2% in December, so the outlook for business inventories appears to be for a roughly unchanged number pending the retail inventories data when they are released Friday.
As for business sales, the 0.3% drop in wholesale sales reported Tuesday was on top of a 1.4% decline in factory shipments reported previously. In addition, retail trade sales fell 0.2% in December, based on the data in the advance report, which is subject to revision when the December data are released Friday morning. As a result, analysts will look for a decline in business sales for the month.
For 2015, total wholesale inventories rose 1.8%, while sales fell 3.6%, both following solid gains in 2014. Not surprisingly, the value of petroleum inventories and sales both fell sharply in 2015 on price drops.
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