January Business Inventories in line with expectation

Sales
The combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers’ shipments for January, adjusted for
seasonal and trading day differences but not for price changes, was estimated at $1,568.5 billion, up 4.7
percent (±0.3 percent) from December 2020 and was up 7.1 percent (±0.4 percent) from January 2020.

Inventories
Manufacturers’ and trade inventories for January, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,982.4 billion, up 0.3 percent (±0.1 percent) from December 2020, but were down 1.8 percent (±0.3 percent) from January 2020.

Inventories/Sales Ratio
The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of January was 1.26.
The January 2020 ratio was 1.38.