By Denny Jacob
U.S. businesses increased their inventories in May, a sign that consumer spending remained strong as inflation started to decline.
Business inventories rose by an adjusted 0.2% in May after increasing 0.1% in April, data from the U.S. Commerce Department showed Tuesday. April’s reading was revised from an initially estimated 0.2% increase.
Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expected inventories to rise by 0.2%.
Inventories rose by 0.7% at retailers, remained flat at wholesalers and fell 0.2% at manufacturers.
On an annual basis, total business inventories were up 3.5%, the data showed.
The ratio of inventories to sales, which hints at how many months it would take for businesses to clear their inventories at the current sales rate, was 1.40 in May. The ratio was 1.33 in May 2022.
Write to Denny Jacob at [email protected]
Read the full article here
