Recent Updates
- US: Housing Starts by State and Region (Mar)
- US: New Res Sales (Mar), S&P Case Shiller Home Price Indexes, FHFA HPI (Feb), Final Building Permits (Mar)
- US: Steel Imports (Mar-Prelim)
- US: Richmond Fed Mfg & Service Sector Surveys (Apr)
- US: Consumer Confidence (Apr)
- Belgium: Business Confidence (Apr)
- US: Regional Building Permits (Mar and YTD)
- Ireland: Bank Lending Survey (Q2)
- more updates...
Economy in Brief
U.S. New Home Sales and Prices Strengthen
Sales of new single-family homes during March increased 4.0% (8.8% y/y) to 694,000 (SAAR)...
U.S. FHFA House Price Index Continues to Strengthen
The FHFA index of U.S. house prices rose 0.6% during February...
U.S. Energy Prices Rise Further
Retail gasoline prices increased to $2.80 per gallon last week (14.3% y/y)...
U.S. Existing Home Sales & Prices Rise Again
The NAR reported that sales of existing homes increased 1.1% during March (-1.2% y/y) to 5.600 million units (AR)...
PMIs Stabilize or Creep Higher After Drop-Off
In the EMU, both the services and manufacturing sectors took a substantial step down one month ago...
by Tom Moeller June 11, 2010
Business inventories indeed have started to
increase, but the rate of accumulation has been modest. April
inventories posted a 0.4% increase and it was the sixth gain in seven
months. The rise was enough to slow the y/y rate of decumulation to
2.8% from -14.3% last summer, but the value of inventories remained
down 12.5% from the 2008 peak. Moreover, the increases have not kept up
with the improvement in sales and the I/S ratio remained at its
historic low of 1.23.
Retail inventories have started to rise and the 0.2% April uptick was the fifth modest increase following sharp declines during 2008 & 2009. Nevertheless, the level of inventories remained 13.6% below the 2008 peak. Accumulation this year owes to modest gains in the auto sector. Less autos, accumulation began only in March and it's been slight. Year-to-year inventories still are down 1.3% versus the peak decumulation rate of 7.7% last fall. The slowdown has been led by furniture & general merchandise stores while the decline in apparel store inventories has finally abated to -6.7% y/y.
Inventory accumulation in the factory sector compares with sharp decumulation through most of 2009. It has been accompanied by higher wholesale inventories, but here the improvement has been raised by higher oil prices. Less oil, wholesale inventories have been virtually flat for all of this year (-5.7% y/y).
The business sales and inventory data are available in Haver's USECON database.
Business Inventories(%) | April | March | February | April y/y | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.6 | -2.8 | -9.8 | 0.8 | 4.0 |
Retail | 0.2 | 0.9 | 0.2 | -3.8 | -10.4 | -3.3 | 2.5 |
Retail excl. Auto | 0.4 | 1.1 | -0.1 | -1.3 | -4.9 | -1.9 | 2.7 |
Wholesale | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.6 | -3.2 | -10.5 | 3.7 | 6.4 |
Manufacturing | 0.5 | 0.5 | 1.0 | -1.6 | -8.7 | 2.2 | 3.7 |