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Business Inventories
When the business inventories report is published it
includes all sales and inventory statistics as well as includes all three
stages of the manufacturing process: manufacturing, wholesale, and retail.
However, after it is released, by that time, all three of the sales
sections and two of the inventory components have already been made open
to the public. The retail inventory is the only new piece of data it
contains, therefore the market usually passes over the business
inventories report.
Sometimes, however, retail stockpiles move enough
to change the total inventory profiles. GDP outlook is then affected. When
this event occurs, the report can bring a small market reaction.
The accumulated sales figures are subject to expiration and it doesn't really give information about personal consumption. The market is far more interested in forward-looking statistics even though they are a good coincident indicator.
An inventory-to-sales (I/S) ratio measures the amount of
months it would take to exhaust existing inventory at current sales
prices. A relatively low or high I/S ratio may mean that creators
will have to build up or bring down stockpile levels. Note that the
strength of final demand and the rate at which recent inventory changes
have been compromised can have an effect on the industrial
production. In actuality, this information is more useful to
economists than other market participants.
|
JAN |
FEB |
MAR |
APR |
MAY |
JUNE |
JULY |
AUG |
SEPT |
OCT |
NOV |
DEC | |
| 2007 | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.5% |