Industrial production fell again in September, seasonally-adjusted month-over-month, for the eighth time out of nine months so far this year. Year-over-year IP was barely positive, at just +0.4%. The last time output growth was so stagnant (on the way down) was March 2008! It has become exceedingly difficult to assign this trend some temporary designation or as if it was [...]
What is taking place on the wholesale level of the supply chain is simply unprecedented. Admittedly, the current iteration of the wholesale data series only dates back to 1992, so there is some possibility of a similar disparity at some point in actual economic history. However, at present, inventory continues onward with only a slight deviation and slowing recently while [...]
Industrial production contracted again in August at a rate (month-over-month) similar to that in June. That would suggest the rebound in July was the aberration since IP has now declined in seven out of the eight months this year. The year-over-year growth rate of just 0.9% would have been the worst of the “recovery” except that downward revisions forced June’s [...]
This is one of those months where you wonder what the seasonal adjustments are doing. Wholesale sales ended their three-quarter year contraction streak by rising in April, but only in the adjusted series. Because sales moved up faster than inventories there, the inventory-to-sales ratios declined somewhat off their dramatic March peak. While that sounds great, the level of wholesale sales [...]
The estimates for wholesale sales and inventory complete the devastation of January’s economic landscape. Overall sales fell by the largest amount, nearly 4%, since the bottom of the Great Recession. Inventories, however, continue to build despite the slowing sales, leaving the inventory-to-sales ratio far above either the most recent “cycle” peak or even the last one. The greatest part of [...]
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