Econintersect‘s analysis of final business sales data (retail plus wholesale plus manufacturing) shows some slowing in the rate of growth.
Analyst Opinion of Business Sales and Inventories
Inventories are now in the normal range. Our primary monitoring tool – the 3 month rolling averages for sales – was little changed and remains in expansion. As the monthly data has significant variation, the 3 month averages are the way to view this series. Overall business sales are improving since the low point in 2015.
Econintersect Analysis:
unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 3.7 % month-over-month, and up 4.6 % year-over-year
unadjusted sales (but inflation adjusted) up 1.7 % year-over-year
unadjusted sales three month rolling average compared to the rolling average 1 year ago decelerated 0.1 % month-over-month, and is up 7.0 % year-over-year.
unadjusted business inventories growth rate accelerated 0.2 % month-over-month (up 3.3 % year-over-year with the three month rolling averages showing inventory growth now marginally declining), and the inventory-to-sales ratio is 1.36 which is average for this month in normal times of economic growth).
US Census Headlines:
seasonally adjusted sales up 0.6 % month-over-month, up 6.7 % year-over-year.
seasonally adjusted inventories were up 0.4 % month-over-month (up 3.2 % year-over-year), inventory-to-sales ratios were up from 1.37 one year ago – and are now 1.33.
market expectations (from Bloomberg / Econoday) were for inventory growth of -0.3 % to 0.4 % (consensus +0.2 %).
The way data is released, differences between the business releases pumped out by the U.S. Census Bureau are not easy to understand with a quick reading. The entire story does not come together until the Business Sales Report (this report) comes out. At this point, a coherent and complete business contribution to the economy can be understood.
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