business sales

Manufacturing & Trade Inventories & Sales for April 2010

The Manufacturing, Trade, Inventories & Sales for April 2010 is out. Sales were up 0.6% and inventories up 0.4% for the month. Last month sales were up 2.5% for all business.

Below is a graph of the sales to inventories ratio. As you can see the ratio has become flat, which implies businesses are simply keeping on hand what they believe they can sell. It represents only a 1.23 months supply of inventories, given the current sales rate.

 

 

Below is a graph of raw inventory changes. Notice inventories are nowhere near pre-recession levels.