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U.S. stockpiles increase
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January 15, 1998: 9:19 a.m. ET
Business inventories keep rising; initial jobless claims grow by 3,000
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. businesses maintained a 17-month string of growth in their inventories in November despite a small fall-off in sales, figures released Thursday by the Commerce Department show.
Business inventories rose 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted $1.04 trillion in November, slightly lower than economists' expectations of a 0.5 percent gain.
The buildup in inventories represents a 4.3 percent gain from November of 1996.
Sales, however, did not keep pace with the rise in inventories. Sales fell 0.2 percent from October to a seasonally adjusted $758 billion. Within that figure, sales of durable goods -- products expected to last three years or longer -- decreased 0.1 percent in November. Nondurable goods sales fell 0.3 percent.
Ken Goldstein, economist at the Conference Board, said he expects a pickup in sales in the early part of this year, however.
"Consumer income remains very strong and now there are bargain prices for a lot of new products that are just coming out to the market, big new computers, new DVD audio equipment," said Goldstein.
Retailers' inventories fell 0.1 percent in November while sales rose 0.3 percent. Wholesale inventories surged 0.9 percent with a 0.7 percent drop in sales. Factory inventories pushed 0.4 percent higher with a 0.3 percent decrease in sales.
The total business inventories to sales ratio stood at 1.38 in November, up slightly from 1.37 in November of 1996.
Inventories/Sales ratios
Seasonally adjusted
(Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census)
Separately, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday that the number of people seeking unemployment benefits for the first time rose by 3,000 during the week ended Jan. 10 to a seasonally adjusted 335,000.
Economists had expected a fall of 14,000 initial jobless claims but a revision to the previous week's figures firmed up the labor market figures.
The four-week moving average -- which softens the effect of any spike in the figures -- rose 3,750 to 322,500 over the last month. 
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U.S. Labor Department
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