Canada Wholesale Trade Rises 1.5% in October

Wholesale transactions in Canada climbed in October and handily beat expectations, boosted by strength in the machinery sector and demand for personal and household goods.

Wholesale transactions rose 1.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis in October to 63.01 billion Canadian dollars ($49 billion), Statistics Canada said Wednesday. Market expectations were for a 0.5% advance.

October's surge in wholesale trade more than offset September's revised 1.1% decline.

In volume, or price-adjusted, terms, October wholesale transactions rose 1.2% from the previous month.

On a 12-month basis, wholesale trade in Canada rose 10% on nominal terms.

The wholesale figures offset some of disappointment provided by manufacturing in October, said economists at CIBC World Markets. Later this week, Statistics Canada reports data on gross domestic product in October, and CIBC expects growth of 0.2% on a month-over-month basis.

Wholesale trade is the largest component of Canada's services sector, which in turn accounts for two-thirds of the country's economic output. Wholesalers connect the farmers or manufacturers that produce goods with the companies or public institutions that need them, such as the factories buying inputs for their industrial processes or retailers buying finished goods to sell to Canadian households. They also import goods from other countries and redistribute them within Canada.

Markets tend to overlook the wholesale-trade data, even though it has a bigger weight in gross domestic product than the more closely watched retail sales.

October's retail-sales report is scheduled for release Thursday.

Write to Paul Vieira at Paul.vieira@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 20, 2017 09:13 ET (14:13 GMT)