Manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,902.2 billion, up 0.4 percent (±0.1 percent) from November 2017 and were up 3.2 percent (±0.3 percent) from December 2016.
The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of December was 1.33. The December 2016 ratio was 1.37.