(February 8, 2008) – The December report on Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories, released today by the Census Bureau, was about medium ugly, with falling sales but very low inventories. You can get a PDF file of the full report here.
Sales of merchant wholesalers, seasonally adjustment at current price changes, were $376.6 billion, down 0.7 percent (+/-0.5%) from November level but were up 10.6 percent (+/-1.3%) from the December 2006 level. The November preliminary estimate was revised downward $1.1 billion or 0.3 percent. December durable goods sales were down 2.0 percent (+/-0.8%) from last month, but were up 1.6 percent (+/-2.0%) from a year ago. Compared to November, electronic goods sales were down 4.3 percent and computer, peripheral equipment and software sales were down 4.0 percent. Nondurable goods sales were up 0.4 percent (+/-0.7%) from November and were up 19.3 percent (+/-2.0%) from last year.
Total inventories (seasonally adjusted in current dollars) were $411.6 billion at the end of December, up 1.1 percent (+/-0.3%) from the revised November level and up 6.1 percent (+/-1.5%) from a year ago. Durable goods inventories were up 0.9 percent (+/-0.3%) from November and up 1.9 percent (+/-1.7%) from last December. Motor vehicle, parts and supplies inventories were up 3.5 percent from last month. Nondurable goods inventories increased 1.6 percent (+/-0.5%) from November and 13.6 percent (+/-2.8%) from a year ago. The December inventories/sales ratio was 1.09. The December 2006 ratio was 1.14.
The upward revision in November and increase in December inventories will support a modest upward revision in Q4/GDP. In addition, the current low inventory levels will allow some inventory rebuilding in the next few months, once wholesalers are convinced that their retail customers are growing again. Hope it doesn’t take long!
JR
