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Economy

Business Inventories Rise: Double Versus Expectations

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By Jon C. Ogg Published
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We had already seen some very weak data from August for industrial production and for capacity utilization this morning. Then came a report showing a huge, more current pop in consumer sentiment from the Reuters/University of Michigan report. Now comes a report showing a rise in business inventories.

As you might have expected with prior wholesale inventories, the July reading for business inventories from the Census Bureau showed that business inventories rose by 0.8% to a seasonally adjusted figure of $1.592 trillion in July, versus a 0.1% gain in June. Bloomberg was calling for only a 0.5% rise and Dow Jones was calling for a gain of +0.4% for this report.

Retail was given the blame here, as their 1.1% gain was blamed on more cars on car lots. Vehicles and parts were up 2.7% in July, but that is said to be more than 20% higher from a year earlier.

The hope today is that the 0.9% gain in retail sales will have eaten up much of the inventory. That being said, with yesterday’s announcement of a new round of quantitative easing from Ben Bernanke and friends at the Federal Reserve, this number was going to likely be ignored. It is also a July reading and we have seen more current data.

JON C. OGG

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About the Author Jon C. Ogg →

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.

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