{"id":429158,"date":"2026-04-01T21:40:05","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T14:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/2026\/04\/us-business-inventories-for-january-0-1-versus-0-1-estimate\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T21:40:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T14:40:05","slug":"us-business-inventories-for-january-0-1-versus-0-1-estimate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/us-business-inventories-for-january-0-1-versus-0-1-estimate-429158\/","title":{"rendered":"US business inventories for January -0.1% versus +0.1% estimate"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Prior month 0.0% revised from +0.1% <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Details<\/p>\n<ul data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"212\">\n<li data-section-id=\"ogsivm\" data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"78\">Sales: $1.9746T in January; +0.3% m\/m (vs Dec 2025), +4.5% y\/y<\/li>\n<li data-section-id=\"1640u87\" data-start=\"79\" data-end=\"138\">Inventories: $2.6750T; -0.1% m\/m vs 0.1 estimate, +1.0% y\/y<\/li>\n<li data-section-id=\"31s979\" data-start=\"139\" data-end=\"212\">Inventories\/Sales Ratio: 1.35, down from 1.40 in Jan 2025\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"171\">At its core, the Census Business Inventories report is a pulse check on demand vs. supply across the U.S. economy\u2014and right now, the signal is relatively constructive.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"173\" data-end=\"231\">Fundamentally, here\u2019s what the latest data is showing:<\/p>\n<ul data-start=\"233\" data-end=\"1212\">\n<li data-section-id=\"gglq64\" data-start=\"233\" data-end=\"429\">Demand is holding up:<br \/>\nSales are still growing (+0.3% m\/m, +4.5% y\/y), which tells you end-demand hasn\u2019t rolled over. Consumers and businesses are still spending at a steady pace.\n<\/li>\n<li data-section-id=\"brpv1d\" data-start=\"431\" data-end=\"626\">Inventory drawdown (slight):<br \/>\nInventories dipped -0.1% on the month, which suggests firms are not overbuilding stock. Instead, they\u2019re letting demand absorb existing inventories.\n<\/li>\n<li data-section-id=\"17ma1cv\" data-start=\"628\" data-end=\"834\">Lean positioning by businesses:<br \/>\nThe inventory-to-sales ratio fell to 1.35 (from 1.40 last year), meaning companies are carrying less inventory relative to sales\u2014a sign of improved balance.\n<\/li>\n<li data-section-id=\"l4a451\" data-start=\"836\" data-end=\"1028\">No signs of excess supply stress:<br \/>\nWhen inventories build too fast relative to sales, it often signals weak demand and future production cuts. That\u2019s not what we\u2019re seeing here.\n<\/li>\n<li data-section-id=\"1s1oc3e\" data-start=\"1030\" data-end=\"1212\">Potential tailwind for production:<br \/>\nLeaner inventories can eventually lead to restocking cycles, which support manufacturing output and GDP if demand remains stable.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p data-section-id=\"126yo5g\" data-start=\"1219\" data-end=\"1263\">Bottom line<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1264\" data-end=\"1590\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">The data is telling a \u201csteady demand, controlled supply\u201d story. Businesses are not overextended on inventory, and sales continue to grind higher. That combination keeps the economic backdrop stable-to-positive, and if demand holds, it opens the door for future restocking and production gains rather than cutbacks.Caveats&#8230; the data is from January so it is old data.   The war and its impact on the economy. The war started on February 28th.  <\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Greg Michalowski at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prior month 0.0% revised from +0.1% Details Sales: $1.9746T in January; +0.3% m\/m (vs Dec 2025), +4.5% y\/y Inventories: $2.6750T; -0.1% m\/m vs 0.1 estimate, +1.0% y\/y Inventories\/Sales Ratio: 1.35, down from&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}