WASHINGTON – The value of business inventories rose 0.3% in May, as expected by analysts and predicted by an MNI calculation, while business sales were down 0.2%, a Commerce Department report Friday showed.
Retail inventories rose 0.5%, revised down from the advance estimate of a 0.6% increase. Wholesale inventories rose 0.4% in the month, while factory inventories were down 0.1%.
Business inventories would have been up only 0.2% in May if a 1.1% jump in retail motor vehicle inventories was excluded, an MNI calculation showed.
Retail inventories, after excluding the motor vehicle inventory gain, were up 0.2% in the month, revised down from the 0.3% gain in the advance estimate. The remaining retail components were mixed, with gains in furniture, building materials, and food stores, but down for clothing and general merchandise stores.
The unpublished retail categories were up 0.7% for the month, according to an MNI calculation, following a 0.1% decrease in the previous month.
Business sales were down 0.2% in May. Retail sales excluding food services fell 0.1%, while wholesale sales fell 0.5%. A 0.1% rise in factory shipments, which are equivalent to sales in this report, provide some modest offset.
With the movements in business inventories and sales, the inventory-to-sales ratio rose to 1.38 in May from 1.37 in April, but was still down sharply from 1.41 in May 2016 as sales growth sharply outpaced inventory growth over the last year.
