A reading on wholesale trade was released on Friday morning by the U.S. Commerce Department. This is for the month of March, a period that would have been weather-impacted and would have been under the same period as the dismal 0.1% gross domestic product (GDP) growth recently reported.
While this number is rarely a market moving release, wholesale trade rose by 1.1% in March. That is more than twice the Bloomberg consensus estimate of only a gain of 0.5%. The range from economists was represented as 0.2% to 1.0% as well. In short, this was better than all estimates. Dow Jones also had a 0.5% consensus reading.
Another boost was the February reading of 0.5% growth in wholesale trade was revised up to a gain of 0.7%.
March’s inventory-to-sales ratio was down to 1.18 from 1.19 a year earlier and from 1.19 in February.
Wholesale trade is a measurement of the total dollar value of sales made and inventories held by wholesalers. It is also a key component of business inventories and sales.
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