Dec. business inventories grow while sales fall

WASHINGTON — The value of business inventories in December was up 0.6% from November as expected by both an MNI survey and the Bloomberg consensus, data released by the Commerce Department Monday morning showed.

business inventories

Retail inventories posted 0.9% gain, while the wholesale inventories report showed a 1.1% increase in the month, while factory inventories were already reported to be flat.

According to an MNI calculation, if a 0.6% increase in motor vehicle inventories had been excluded, total business inventories would have been up 0.6% in December.

After excluding the increase in motor vehicle inventories, the remaining retail categories were up 1.0%. All of the other retail inventory components were generally up in December.

At the same time, the relatively large unpublished retail category was up 1.2% following a 0.3% decrease in November, according to an MNI calculation.

December business sales posted a 1.0% decrease in the month, and retail sales excluding food services were down 1.8% in December. There was a previously announced 0.2% decline for factory shipments, which are equal to sales in this report, and wholesale sales posted a 1.0% decline.

The inventory-to-sales ratio was up in December to 1.38 from 1.36 in November due to faster growth in inventories compared to sales in December. The ratio was up from the 1.34 level seen in December 2017, as sales and inventory growth has slightly outpaced sales growth over the last year.

Market News International is a real-time global news service for fixed-income and foreign exchange market professionals. See www.marketnews.com.
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