Wholesale Inventories Dip in October

The U.S. Census Bureau reported Friday morning that U.S. wholesale sales rose 1.4% in October to $452.2 billion from the revised September total and up 2.2% compared with October 2015. Inventories dipped 0.4% month over month to a value of $587.7 billion in October. Economists polled by Bloomberg expected an inventory drop of 0.4%.

October sales of durable goods were up 1.1% from September and up 2.5% from their year-ago level. Sales of nondurable goods were up 1.6% month over month and up 1.9% from last October. Sales of petroleum and petroleum products were up 6.6% from last month, and sales of farm product raw materials rose 8.3%.

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Wholesale trade measures the dollar value of sales made and inventories held by merchant wholesalers. It is a component of all business sales and inventories, and Census Bureau data showed that the inventories/sales ratio for merchant wholesalers dipped to 1.30 from 1.32 a year earlier. The October reading is the lowest in two years.

Durable goods inventories slipped 0.3% on an adjusted basis, with the biggest drops coming in metals and machinery, both down 1%. Furniture inventories rose 1.6% to post the largest gain in durable goods.

While inventories in farm products posted the biggest gain in nondurable inventories (2%), that was only about half the gain posted in September. Year over year, farm product inventories rose 8.6% on an adjusted basis.

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