May 2010 Wholesale Trade Sales & Inventories was released today. Wholesale sales dropped -0.3% from last month. Last month sales were a revised +0.9% change from March. This is the first decline in sales in 14 months.

Lumber and Farm products has the largest sales declines. Non-durable goods declined -1.0% from April as a whole, durable goods was +0.5% increase from April 2010.

Wholesale Inventories rose +0.5% in May 2010 and the increase was not petroleum, which was down -6.0% from last month.

Overall another report which shows a slowing. Notice the turn in sales to inventory rations in the graph below. The sales to inventory ratio, or how many months to sell off the stuff they got, is still low, only 1.14 months to sell inventory.

Sales

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that May 2010 sales of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices, after adjustment for seasonal variations and trading-day differences but not for price changes, were $350.6 billion, down 0.3 percent (+/-0.5%)* from the revised April level, but were up 15.1 percent (+/-1.6%) from the May 2009 level. The April preliminary estimate was revised upward $0.6 billion or 0.2 percent. May sales of durable goods were up 0.5 percent (+/-0.7%)* from last month and were up 18.2 percent (+/-1.9%) from a year ago. Sales of metals and minerals, except petroleum were up 5.9 percent from last month and sales of computer and computer peripheral equipment and software were up 1.8 percent. Sales of nondurable goods were down 1.0 percent (+/-0.5%) from last month, but were up 12.6 percent (+/-2.1%) from last year. Sales of farm product raw materials were down 6.9 percent from last month.

Inventories

Total inventories of merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices, after adjustment for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were $398.8 billion at the end of May, up 0.5 percent (+/-0.4%) from the revised April level, but were down 2.1 percent (+/-1.1%) from a year ago. The April preliminary estimate was revised downward $0.9 billion or 0.2 percent. End-of-month inventories of durable goods were up 0.7 percent (+/-0.4%) from last month, but were down 4.4 percent (+/-1.2%) from last May. Inventories of machinery, equipment, and supplies were up 1.7 percent from last month and inventories of computer and computer peripheral equipment and software were up 1.6 percent. End-of-month inventories of nondurable goods were up 0.1 percent (+/-0.5%)* from April and were up 1.6 percent (+/-2.1%)* compared to last May. Inventories of beer, wine, and distilled alcoholic beverages were up 3.7 percent from last month, while inventories of petroleum and petroleum products were down 6.0 percent.

Inventories/Sales Ratio

The May inventories/sales ratio for merchant wholesalers, except manufacturers’ sales branches and offices, based on seasonally adjusted data, was 1.14. The May 2009 ratio was 1.34.

Here is last month's report.