Wholesale Inventories Slip

The nation's inventories, thanks to tight management, are lean which may be a negative for current GDP growth but is unquestionably a positive for future growth and, more importantly, future employment growth. Wholesale inventories slipped 0.2 percent in August vs a preliminary decline of 0.1 percent and compared with a final decline in July which is also at 0.1 percent. August's draw comes at the same time that sales at the wholesale rose very sharply, up 0.7 percent to pull down the stock-to-sales ratio to 1.33 from 1.34.