Econoday Economic Report: Business Inventories March 14, 2018

2018 Economic Calendar

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Business Inventories

Released On 3/14/2018 10:00:00 AM For Jan, 2018

	Prior	Prior Revised	Consensus	Consensus Range	Actual
Inventories - M/M change	0.4 %	0.6 %	0.5 %	0.3 % to 0.6 %	0.6 %

Highlights
Inventory growth proved strong in January, up 0.6 percent led by a 0.8 percent gain for wholesalers and a 0.7 percent build for retailers and including a 0.3 percent inventory rise at manufacturers. Builds in February and March, however, are not certain given a decline in total sales which fell 0.2 percent and which does not point to the need for restocking.

Consensus Outlook
A sizable build of 0.5 percent is expected for January business inventories, an increase that would give an early boost to the inventory component of first-quarter GDP.

Definition
Business inventories are the dollar amount of inventories held by manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. The level of inventories in relation to sales is an important indicator of the near-term direction of production activity. (Bureau of the Census) Why Investors Care

Inventories tend to rise when economic conditions are strong since sales are rising at the same time, the inventory-to- sales ratio may remain stable, or rise at a very slow pace. Inventories tend to when economic conditions are weak since sales are falling at the same time, the inventory-to-sales ratio may remain relatively stable. The I- S ratio then begins to rise as sales fall more quickly than inventory growth.
Data Source: Haver Analytics

2018 Release Schedule

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