If you thought today's inventory build numbers would add to GDP estimates, you thought wrong.

The Atlanta Fed GDPNow Forecast slipped to 2.0% today following recent economic reports.

GDPNow Latest forecast: 2.0 Percent – April 10, 2018

Earlier this morning, Bloomberg Econoday offered this thought on inventories: “One of the positives for first-quarter GDP is a major inventory build for wholesalers who are trying to keep up with sales. Wholesale inventories rose 1.0 percent in February with January revised higher to 0.9 percent. Year-on-year, February inventories were up a very sizable 5.5 percent but trailing sales which were very strong at 6.8 percent.”

The Econoday comment caught me as more than a bit peculiar given the December 2017 to January 2018 percent change in sales was revised from the preliminary estimate of down 1.1 percent to down 1.5 percent.

I noted that sales adjustment in Wholesale Inventory Build Continues as retail Sales Flounder.

For discussion of retail sales, please see Confidence? Retail Sales Down Third Month.

With retail sales down three months in a row, exactly how and why are wholesalers “trying to keep up with sales“?