Wholesale Inventories Gain Outshined by Sales in September
ThinkstockWholesale inventories for the month of September came in with a gain of 1.1%, according to the Commerce Department. This has a lag because it is a September report. This is also less current than the strong consumer sentiment reading…
Wholesale inventories for the month of September came in with a gain of 1.1%, according to the Commerce Department. This has a lag because it is a September report. This is also less current than the strong consumer sentiment reading we saw earlier this morning. Dow Jones was calling for a gain of 0.4% and Bloomberg was calling for a gain of 0.3%. Today’s gain of 1.1% was higher than all economists in the range of Bloomberg’s consensus group of -0.2% to +0.5%.
It should be worth noting that petroleum inventories were up by 5.5% in September, but prices have dropped since. That may further help the next reading.
Wholesalers appear to be building inventories for stronger expectations. It is worth noting that the sales component was up by 2.0% for September, so orders were not weak as had been seen over the summer. This 1.1% gain comes to a seasonally adjusted $494.15 billion. August was revised to +0.8% on inventories and to a gain of 1.0% on wholesale sales.
The ratio of inventories to sales dipped down to 1.19 in September from 1.20 in the prior month.
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.
