Blog Assignment #2: Total Business Inventories

1) I believe that anyone who is looking to invest in any company would be interested in this statistic because represents how much inventory is being purchased by businesses. Also, political figures and economists may be interested in this statistic because it is an indicator of how businesses are performing and how the economy is doing.

2) This statistic is collected monthly, but is usually 6-8 weeks behind. So the recent number actually represents the total business inventories of 6 weeks ago. The statistic is collected by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

3) The current number for this statistic is just above 14,000,000,000,000. This number is up from 13,000,000,000,000 in early 2010 but down from almost 16,000,000,000,000 in 2008.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s[1][id]=BUSINV