Key facts
- Wholesale inventories rose 7.6% year over year in September, the Census Bureau said.
- Durable goods inventories at wholesalers rose 0.6%, with electrical goods up 2.5% and hardware up 1.3%.
- Petroleum inventories rose 10.6% in September, the Census Bureau said.
- Inventory investment contributed 1.61 percentage points to 3.4% annualized GDP growth in the July-September quarter.
US wholesale inventories rose an upwardly revised 0.7% in September, the Commerce Department's Census Bureau said on November 9, above the 0.6% first reported. Stocks at wholesalers had risen 0.6% in August and were up 7.6% from a year earlier.
Durable goods inventories at wholesalers rose 0.6%, with stocks of electrical goods up 2.5% and hardware up 1.3%. The report linked the electrical goods and hardware increases to business spending on artificial intelligence. Petroleum inventories rose 10.6%.
Sales at wholesalers rose 2.8% in September after a 2.0% gain in August. At September's sales pace it would take 1.21 months to clear shelves, down from 1.23 months in August and 1.34 months in September 2025.
Inventory investment rebounded in the third quarter after contracting for five straight quarters, the report said. Inventories contributed 1.61 percentage points to the economy's 3.4% annualized growth pace in the July-September quarter.