Inventories manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,889.0 billion, up 0.7 percent (±0.1 percent) from July 2017 and were up 3.6 percent (±0.3 percent) from August 2016.

The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of August was 1.38. The August 2016 ratio was 1.40.