The headlines say wholesale sales improved and inventories grew. This data series is very noisy, and continues 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 unadjusted data three month rolling averages which decelerated for the third month in a row. However, even with decelerating growth, this sector is growing better than most of the economy.
I am not sure on what basis this data should be judged. Sales and inventories are growing twice as fast as GDP. The unadjusted rolling averages seem a little soft this month – but it could just be a new change in wholesale and associated warehousing coming into the holiday season. [note that Econintersect analysis is year-over-year – so that the analysis is based on the change from one year ago.] The long term one year trend is showing accelerating growth while the 3 month trend is slightly decelerating. Econintersect Analysis:
Year-over-Year Sales – Unadjusted (blue line), Unadjusted but Inflation Adjusted (red line), 3 month Rolling Averages (yellow line)
US Census Headlines based on seasonally adjusted data:
