The latest inventories data from the US Census Bureau shows that the US retailers are continuing to grow inventories, beyond what sales can accommodate for. Figure 1 shows the development in the size of the retail inventories, as well as a trend line matching the 2009-2019 developments. It is clear here that the orange line depicting the inventories is exceeding the blue trend line. In absolute terms, the deviation, in November 2024, reached a point where the retailers’ inventories are 30.2 billion USD higher than what can be accounted for by the normal trend development. (....)