Traders normally don’t pay all that much attention to inventories data but amid a rapid economic decline, they become very important. Rising inventories add to GDP in the near-term but rob from it in the long-term. Q4 GDP was not as bad as expected partially because of a big jump in inventories. A drop of 0.8% is expected for December wholesale inventories.
Update: inventories fell 1.4% in December and November was revised down 0.9% versus 0.6% previously.
Wholesale sales were down 3.6% in December versus a 7.3% drop in November.
