Wholesale sales of goods and services declined by 0.1% in November to $36.5 billion following a 0.3% decrease in October, says Statistics Canada.

Although sales for the first 11 months of 2003 were up 3.7% from the same period of 2002, that growth lagged behind the 6% increase for the same period in 2001, the agency said Monday.

The November numbers were below consensus expectations of a 0.2% increase, but economists see better days ahead.

“Stripping out the effect of declining prices, particularly in the automotive and computer and electronic products sector, sales rose 0.3% over the month. In general, after flattening out at the start of the summer, the trend in wholesale sales has been upward and as economic and trade activity continues to improve, sales will post even stronger results moving into 2004,” says RBC Financial.

Also, wholesale inventories rose 0.3% in November to $45.9 billion. RBC explains that this was largely due to computer and electronic products and lumber and building materials. This resulted in a slight uptick in the inventory to sales ratio from 1.25 to 1.26, it says. “Despite the increase in inventories this month, the inventory correction in Canada is still underway, indicating that inventory accumulation could once again become a source of growth in 2004, albeit a modest one,” RBC says.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., existing single-family home sales for December shattered expectations yet again, rising 6.9% to 6,470,000 units. RBC says that this represents the second highest rate of sales on record.