Wholesale sales numbers bounced a hefty 0.7% but the internals look pretty weak.
Autos were down again with auto inventories up.
Durable goods sales declined 0.2% and apparel dipped 5.9%. The inventory-to-sales figure remained unchanged.
Let’s dive into the Census Department report on Monthly Wholesale Inventories for a closer look.
Wholesale Sales
Key Sales Numbers
- Sales jumped 0.7% jump due to a 13.5% rise in petroleum. Year-over-year, petroleum is down 23.2%.
- Automotive sales slid 0.7%, down 0.9% year-over year.
- Apparel dove 5.9% this month, down 6.2% year-over-year.
Inventories
Inventory-to-Sales Ratio
Despite the increase in sales, the inventory-to-sales ratio remained a problematic-looking 1.36.
Individual components such as autos, hardware, apparel, and machinery look worse.
This was not a good report.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
And the outlier increase in petroleum sales reflect a change in price not volume.
Yes, declining oil and gas prices had a negative affect on some economic indicators, and rising prices do the opposite. Why always ignore the former and hype the latter? GDPNow jumped 0.5% to 2.2.
We are at stall speed. Revisions will be made after the election which reveal economy was actually in recession in the summer. This is a repeat of 2000.
At some point revisions to a recession are coming. After the election of course.
Appears the TPTB are planning another Greatest Depression for October 2016 as they did purposely in October 2008.
But we are on to them now!