Wholesale Inventories Gain Outshined by Sales in September

It should be worth noting that petroleum inventories were up by 5.5% in September, but prices have dropped since. That may further help the next reading.

Wholesalers appear to be building inventories for stronger expectations. It is worth noting that the sales component was up by 2.0% for September, so orders were not weak as had been seen over the summer. This 1.1% gain comes to a seasonally adjusted $494.15 billion. August was revised to +0.8% on inventories and to a gain of 1.0% on wholesale sales.

The ratio of inventories to sales dipped down to 1.19 in September from 1.20 in the prior month.

JON C. OGG