A worker stacks boxes of television sets after they have been assembled, checked and repackaged, before moving them to the warehouse at Element Electronics in Winnsboro, South Carolina May 29, 2014. (Photo: Reuters)
The U.S. Census Bureau said Friday manufacturing and trade business inventories were $1,859.7 billion in May, up 0.3% from April 2017. With a ±0.1 percent margin, they were up 2.4% from May 2016.
Wholesalers also built up inventories in May, including a 0.4% with manufacturers. That pulled down their inventories by 0.1% and total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data was 1.38, down from 1.41 in May 2016.
Business inventories at auto dealers shot up 1.1% in May, increasing the overall retail component by 0.5%.
