Total business inventories rose 0.3% (5.3% y/y) during May following an unrevised 0.5% April gain. Total business sales rose 0.2% (1.5% y/y) following an unrevised 0.2% decline. The inventory-to-sales (I/S) ratio held steady at an unrevised 1.39. Business inventory swings can have a meaningful impact on GDP. In 1Q'19 inventories added 0.6 percentage point to GDP growth following a 0.1 point addition to 4Q'18 growth.

Retail inventories increased 0.4% (4.7% y/y) in May after rising 0.6% during April. Auto inventories, which comprise roughly 35% of retail inventories, grew 0.7% (7.7% y/y). Non-auto retail inventories rose 0.3% (3.0% y/y). General merchandise inventories, the second largest sector fell 0.4% (-0.0% y/y). Department store inventories, a subset of general merchandise, moved 0.3% lower (-8.4% y/y) as clothing & accessory store inventories ticked 0.1% higher (0.8% y/y). Factory sector inventories gained 0.2% (3.6% y/y). As reported last week, wholesale inventories rose 0.4% (7.7% y/y).

Retail sales increased 0.3% in May (2.7% y/y, with non-auto sales growing 0.2% (2.6% y/y). Wholesale sector sales edged 0.1% higher (0.4% y/y), while shipments from the factory sector also rose 0.1% (1.4% y/y).

The inventory-to-sales ratio in the retail sector was unchanged at 1.46. The non-auto I/S ratio also was stable at 1.20, above the historic low of 1.17 reached in November 2018 (data goes back to 1967). The wholesale and factory sector I/S ratios edged up to 1.35 and 1.38 respectively.

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