Playing a little catch up

The combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers’ shipments for August, adjusted for seasonal variation, was estimated at $1,452.4 billion, up 0.6 percent from July 2020, but down 0.4 percent from August 2019.

Manufacturers’ and trade inventories for August, adjusted for seasonal variations,were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,919.2 billion, up 0.3 percent from July 2020, but down 5.5 percent from August 2019.

The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data was 1.32 at the end of August. The August 2019 ratio was 1.39.

U.S. retail and food services sales for September 2020 were $549.3 billion, an increase of 1.9 percent from the previous month and up 5.4 percent over September 2019

Industrial production fell 0.6 percent in September, its first decline after four consecutive months of gains. The index increased at an annual rate of 39.8 percent for the third quarter as a whole. Although production has recovered more than half of its February to April decline, the September reading was still 7.1 percent below its pre-pandemic February level.