Total business inventories increased 0.3% (4.9% year-on-year) during February, after a slightly upwardly-revised 0.9% gain in January. Total business sales edged up 0.1% (2.4% y/y) following a 0.3% rise. The inventory-to-sales (I/S) ratio stood at 1.39 for the third consecutive month. Business inventory swings can have a meaningful impact on GDP. In the second and third quarters of 2018 changes in inventories subtracted 1.2 percentage points and then added 2.3 ppt respectively. In Q4, inventories provided just a 0.1 percentage point boost.

Retail inventories increased 0.3% (4.3% y/y) in February after a 0.8% gain. Auto inventories, which comprise roughly 35% of retail inventories, grew 0.3% (8.6% y/y) Non-auto retail inventories rose 0.4% (1.9% y/y). General merchandise inventories, the second largest sector, declined 0.2% both for February and from a year ago. The troubled department store sector – a subset of general merchandise – saw inventories down 0.3% (-6.2% y/y); inventories plummeted a record 5.3% in November 2018 (data goes back to 1992) and have not recovered. Factory sector inventories gained 0.3% (3.6% y/y). As reported yesterday, wholesale inventories were up 0.2% (6.9% y/y).

Retail sales declined a downwardly-revised 0.3% in February (+1.9% y/y) with non-auto sales also down 0.3% (+2.0% y/y). Note: the advanced retail sales data for March was released today showing a 1.7% jump (3.5% y/y). Wholesale sector sales increased 0.3% (2.1% y/y), while shipments from the factory sector rose 0.4% (3.3% y/y) after four consecutive monthly declines.

The inventory-to-sales ratio in the retail sector edged up to 1.48 in February. The non-auto I/S ratio ticked up to 1.21 slightly above the historic low of 1.17 reached in November 2018 (data goes back to 1967). The wholesale and factory sector I/S ratios were unchanged at 1.35 and 1.36 respectively.

The manufacturing and trade data are in Haver's USECON database.