In July 2025, US wholesale sales experienced a growth of 1.4%, surpassing the expected increase of 0.2%. Previously, sales had risen by 0.3%. <\/p>\n
Inventories grew by 0.1% in July, compared to the prior increase of 0.2%. The previous inventories also saw a rise of 0.2%. <\/p>\n
Although this report is considered lower-tier, the inventories figures play a part in GDP calculations. These numbers can cause considerable short-term fluctuations due to activities like stockpiling and de-stocking related to tariffs.<\/p>\n
The July wholesale numbers came in much hotter than anyone expected, showing a significant jump in sales. This strong demand, paired with a smaller-than-forecast rise in inventories, points to a robust economic picture for the third quarter. It suggests that businesses are successfully selling through their stock rather than having it pile up on shelves.<\/p>\n
This data becomes more significant when we look at the bigger picture. We just saw the August jobs report come in strong, and core inflation has remained sticky above 3% for the last quarter. This report on strong underlying demand will almost certainly make the Federal Reserve more cautious about signaling any future rate cuts.<\/p>\n
For derivative traders, this tilts the board toward a “higher for longer” interest rate scenario. We should expect interest rate volatility to pick up, and the pricing on Fed funds futures will likely shift to reduce the odds of a rate cut in early 2026. This makes long-dated call options on interest rate futures a risky position right now.<\/p>\n
This is a very different environment from the massive inventory builds we saw during the supply chain chaos of 2022 and 2023. Back then, stockpiling was a sign of uncertainty, but today’s data suggests a healthier cycle where final demand is genuinely strong. The inventory-to-sales ratio, which recently fell to 1.32, is now well below the 1.45 levels seen during those periods of instability.<\/p>\n
This underlying strength could be a signal to look at call options on cyclical sector ETFs, like industrials and consumer discretionary, that benefit from a strong economy. Conversely, we might consider buying protective puts on rate-sensitive sectors like technology and utilities. The prospect of sustained higher interest rates creates a significant headwind for those groups.<\/p>\n
Create your live VT Markets account<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0start trading<\/a>\u00a0now. <\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US wholesale sales rose 1.4% in July 2025, exceeding expectations; inventories slightly increased by 0.1%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":17025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-updates"],"acf":{"acf_article_selection_author":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vtmarkets.com\/en-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}