July 2018 Headline Business Sales Improve -

July 2018 Headline Business Sales Improve

Sep 14, 2018Jeremy ParkinsonFinance0

Econintersect‘s analysis of final business sales data (retail plus wholesale plus manufacturing) shows an improvement in the rate of growth. Inventory levels are high relative to times of economic expansion.

Analyst Opinion of Business Sales and Inventories

Inventories remain elevated this month. Our primary monitoring tool – the 3-month rolling averages for sales – improved and remains in expansion. As the monthly data has significant variation, the 3-month averages are the way to view this series. Overall business sales are improving since the low point in 2015 – and the trend in the last 6 months shows improvement in the rate of growth.

Econintersect Analysis:

unadjusted sales rate of growth accelerated 3.2 % month-over-month, and up 9.7 % year-over-year

unadjusted sales (but inflation adjusted) up 6.1 % year-over-year

unadjusted sales three-month rolling average compared to the rolling average 1 year ago accelerated 0.6 % month-over-month and is up 8.3 % year-over-year.

unadjusted business inventories growth rate grew 0.3 % month-over-month (up 4.3 % year-over-year), and the inventory-to-sales ratio is 1.36 which is significantly elevated for this month in times of economic growth).

US Census Headlines:

seasonally adjusted sales up 0.2 % month-over-month, up 8.1 % year-over-year.

seasonally adjusted inventories were up 0.6 % month-over-month (up 4.3 % year-over-year), inventory-to-sales ratios were up from 1.39 one year ago – and are now 1.34.

market expectations (from Nasdaq / Econoday) were for inventory growth of 0.2 % to 0.6 % (consensus +0.5 %).

The way data is released, differences between the business releases pumped out by the U.S. Census Bureau are not easy to understand with a quick reading. The entire story does not come together until the Business Sales Report (this report) comes out. At this point, a coherent and complete business contribution to the economy can be understood.