The US Census Bureau published the March 2023 statistics last week, revealing the country’s new data for international trade, wholesale inventories and retail inventories. The statistics reveal that international trade dropped to $84.6 billion in March, a loss of nearly $7.4 compared to February.

An analysis of the data shows that this drop is a reflection of the wholesale and retail inventories in the country, as they both showed signs of stagnation since October 2022.

Manufacturers, wholesale and retail inventories

In March, wholesale inventories achieved a marginal improvement estimated at 0.1% month-on-month and 9.3% year-on-year. Retail inventory figures were slightly higher, achieving a 0.7% increase in March and an 8.4% increase from March 2022. However, in general, the trend is pointing downward for both market segments combined when compared to mid-2022.

The slow depletion of goods in American warehouses is not only an issue faced by wholesalers and retailers. A similar trend can be seen for orders of manufactured goods, which – according to the official statistics – increased by only 0.9% in March vs. February. However, this positive development came after two consecutive months of decreases. This increase was mostly led by growth in orders for transportation equipment (9% increase) followed by orders for durable goods (3.2% increase).

Inventories vs. Sales

Adding the sales angle to the recent inventory statistics helps understand the market situation in general. The press release by the Census Bureau - which so far published February sales data only - highlighted that the combined value of distributive trade sales and manufacturers’ shipments remained virtually unchanged compared to January. The total business inventories/sales ratio at the end of February was 1.36.

What does this mean for containerised trade?

According to an analysis conducted by Sea Intelligence earlier this month, US imports of containerised goods dropped sharply in the past few months. Although few imported goods are entering the country, companies' inventories are not clearing as rapidly as expected, creating an "imbalance in the system." Sea Intel analysts conclude that this is "a concerning sign in terms of hopes of container volume recovery, because it indicates that we are not yet as far along in the inventory cycle, as some industry stakeholders might have hoped for."