EmailWholesale inventories increased 0.4% in August after increasing 0.8% in July. The Briefing.com consensus expected wholesale inventories to increase 0.5%.
The inventory to sales ratio remained at 1.16.
Unlike June and July, the inventory gains in August were the likely the result of planned inventory growth. Weak sales in June and July caused consumers to leave more goods on the shelves than merchant wholesalers expected. This led to larger-than-intended inventory levels over the previous two months.
Sales in August jumped 1.0% as just about every sector saw substantial growth. Since inventories increased in tandem with the strong sales gains, it is likely that merchant wholesalers expected the sales to prosper in August and purchased the inventories to match the sales gains.
