As we noted last night [3], inventory destocking is the great unknown as far as consensus expectations and the wholesale inventories data this morning just confirmed that this is a worrying trend. With the first drop MoM since September 2011 and dramatically missing expectations, inventories dropped 0.2% and perhaps more worryingly - given the drop in inventories - is the critical inventory-to-sales ratio has now risen two months in a row as clearly sales are dropping faster than companies were expecting.
[4]