Wholesale Inventories Dip into the Red
The report on wholesale trade in the month of June is now out, but we have already seen some of this in trade deficit data and in the most recent Q2 GDP preliminary data. The Commerce Department showed that wholesale…
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Wholesale trade matters, as it measures the dollar value of sales made and inventories held by merchant wholesalers. It is also a component of business sales and inventories. The seasonally adjusted figure was $481.9 billion, but sales for wholesalers fell 1.4% to almost $402.9 billion.
The implication here is easy to see. Businesses are reluctant to hold lots and lots of inventories. With a weak economy, business owners do not want their capital tied up in a bunch of goods that they may have to discount to push out the door.
Today’s news is simply an explanation of “JIT” inventories … “just in time,” even if it has been used more for manufacturing supplies in the past.
JON C. OGG
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. www.247wallst.com.
