On Wednesday, the Commerce Department announced a decline in U.S. wholesale inventories for the month of March. The report showed a 0.4% decrease of wholesale inventories for March, coming off a 0.2% increase in February, which aligns with economists' predictions.
It was the non-durable goods' inventories that fueled the decline, plummeting by 1.1% in March, following a 0.5% decrease in February. Moreover, inventories of durable goods also decreased slightly by 0.1% in March, after February's 0.7% increase.
The report also revealed a drop of 1.3% in wholesale sales in March, contrasting with the 2.0% upswing noted in the past month. Durable goods sales decreased by 1.0% this March, following a 1.4% increase in February. Sales of non-durable goods saw a greater fall, plunging by 1.6% in March, after a 2.5% surge in February.
Owing to sales declining at a greater pace than inventories, the inventories-to-sales ratio for merchant wholesalers slightly increased to 1.35 in March, up from 1.34 in February.
