--US April business inventories unchanged; sales -0.5%
--US April inventory/sales ratio at 1.44; March revised to 1.43
--US April retailer inventories -0.2%; autos -0.2%
By Andrew Williams Washington, June 14 (BridgeNews) - U.S. business inventories were unchanged in April while sales dropped 0.5%, their third consecutive monthly decline, the U.S. Commerce Department said Thursday. Inventories at factories, wholesalers and retailers were roughly in line with the consensus estimate for a 0.1% gain. The inventory-to-sales ratio climbed to 1.44 in April from March's revised 1.43.
Inventories at retailers were down 0.2% in April after dropping 0.3% the previous month. Thursday's report was the first to use the new North American Industry Classification System which Commerce has adopted to evaluate manufacturing, retail and wholesale trade. The revisions have been applied to data going back to 1992. In a BridgeNews survey of 20 economists, estimates for April business inventories ranged from down 0.1% to up 0.3%. The retail inventory figure provides the final snapshot of U.S. inventory activity for the month. As previously reported, factory inventories grew 0.1% (Story .4733), while wholesale inventories climbed 0.3% (Story .4708). In March, overall business inventories fell a revised 0.4%, while sales were down a revised 0.6%.
RETAIL INVENTORY LEVELS
In the retail sector, automotive stocks shrank 0.2%, after sliding a revised 0.9% in March. Excluding autos, retail inventories were down 0.2% in April but were up 3.5% from April 2000.
STOCK-TO-SALES RATIO
The inventories/sales ratio for retailers fell to 1.57 for April from 1.60 in March. With this report, Commerce has stopped issuing separate durable and non-durable ratios for the retail sector.