WASHINGTON – Seasonally adjusted sales at merchant wholesalers, excluding manufacturers’ branches and offices, increased in March to 1.8 percent above the February level and 8.4 percent above the level in March 2006, according to a report today from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Durable goods sales increased 2.1 percent – to 6.6 percent above year-ago levels – led by sales of computers and equipment, which increased 6.1 percent compared with February. The increase was the fastest in 18 months, Bloomberg News said. It followed a 1.0 percent gain in February.
Sales of nondurable goods rose 1.5 percent in March – to 10.1 percent above their level in March 2006 – led by a 3.0 percent monthly increase in sales of beer, wine and spirits.
Wholesalers’ inventories rose 0.3 percent over the month to $393.2 billion at the end of March, for an increase of 7.6 percent compared with the same time a year ago. Inventories of furniture and home furnishings increased 2.1 percent compared with the end of February, while inventories of machinery, equipment and supplies declined 1.3 percent.
The increase in overall inventories was smaller than the 0.4-percent median forecast of 40 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, indicating progress by wholesalers in paring the surpluses that built up last year.
“We’re getting to the end of the inventory correction process,” Russell Price, senior economist at H&R Block Financial Advisors in Detroit, told Bloomberg, “and that’s a big thing in the whole economy’s advancement.”
The inventories/sales ratio in March was 1.14, the same as in March 2006, indicating that goods on hand at the end of the month would last 1.14 months at the current sales pace. That was a decline from the nation’s 1.15-month stockpile at the end of February.
Additional information, including the 4-page report, Monthly Wholesale Trade: Sales and Inventories, is available from the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of the Census at www.census.gov/mwts.
