Higher shipments keep the inventory-to-shipment ratio in check (July 15, 2004)

The inventory-to-shipment ratio for May remained just shy of the lowest level on record, the latest Statistics Canada numbers show.

The ratio edged up to 1.23 in May from April’s 1.22, the lowest ratio since the beginning of the current series in 1992. Shipments and inventories have been rising at a similar pace for the last two months, which has kept the ratio quite stable.

The finished-products inventory-to-shipment ratio remained unchanged at 0.42 for the third consecutive month. The
ratio is a key measure of the time (in months) required in order to exhaust inventories if shipments were to remain at their current level.