The headlines say August 2014 wholesale sales decreased and inventories grew rather sharply – and our analysis shows the same. This data series is very noisy, and had been on a roller coaster of one good month / one bad month. Because of this noise, the best way to look at this series may be the three month rolling averages for unadjusted sales which decelerated this month.
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Econintersect Analysis:
- unadjusted sales rate of growth decelerated 4.7% month-over-month
- unadjusted sales year-over-year growth is up 2.9% year-over-year
- unadjusted sales (but inflation adjusted) up 0.9% year-over-year
- the 3 month rolling average of unadjusted sales decelerated 0.4% month-over-month, and up 6.7% year-over-year
- unadjusted inventories unchanged year-over-year (decelerated 0.0% month-over-month), inventory-to-sales ratio is 1.17 which is historically is very high for non-recessionary periods for Augusts.
US Census Headlines:
- sales down 0.7% month-over-month, up 5.8% year-over-year
- inventories up 0.7% month-over-month, inventory-to-sales ratios were 1.16 one year ago – and are now 1.19.
- the market expected inventory month-over-month change between -0.5% to 0.7% (consensus 0.3%) versus the 0.7% reported.
Year-over-Year Growth – Wholesale Sales – Unadjusted data (blue line), Inflation Adjusted Data (red line)
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The short term year-over-year trend for sales is now fluctuating in a narrow range after an improving period in the first half of 2013.
Wholesale Sales – Unadjusted – $ Millions
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Wholesale sales have hit new monthly record highs for the last 17 months (using current dollars). Overall, the inventory-to-sales ratios (a rising ratio is an indicator of economic slowing) was above the normal range for past Augusts.
