WASHINGTON — September wholesale inventories increased by 0.4%, revised upward from the 0.3% increase reported in the advance estimate, while wholesale sales were up 0.2% in the month, data released by the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday showed.
Given that wholesale inventories rose 0.4% and factory inventories were already reported up 0.5%, and barring no revision to the 0.1% increase in retail inventories, an MNI calculation is expecting an increase of 0.3% for business inventories, which will be released on November 15.
With the addition of the 0.2% increase in wholesale sales to the 0.4% increase for retail trade sales from last month's advanced sales release and the 0.9% increase for factory shipments already reported, an MNI calculation predicts that business sales will see a 0.5% increase, barring no large revision to retail trade sales data.
Given the increases in both inventories and sales, the inventory to sales ratio was unchanged in the month. Wholesale inventories and sales both rose year over year, but sales rose more than inventories. Inventories were up 5.2% year/year, while sales were also up 7.8% from September 2018. The ratio is down from the 1.29 ratio seen one year ago due to sales growth outpacing inventories over the past year.
When excluding the 1.4% gain in auto inventories, inventories would have been up 0.2%, according to an MNI calculation. Excluding a 0.6% decrease in auto sales, sales would have been up 0.2%, also according to an MNI calculation.
The value of durable inventories rose by 0.8% in the month, led by gains in autos, computer equipment, and smaller gains in all other categories. Nondurables inventories fell 0.4% in September on declines in farm products, drugs, and the miscellaneous nondurables category.
Durables goods sales were flat in the month, on gains in hardware, machinery, and the miscellaneous durables categories and declines in all other categories. Nondurable goods sales rose by 0.3% in September on generally higher categories.
