Manufacturers and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,854.2 billion, down 0.2 percent from March 2017, but were up 2.3 percent (±0.4 percent) from April 2016.
The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of April was 1.37. The April 2016 ratio was 1.42.