As an academic exercise, I took the monthly inventory data for the major markets for the last 3 years and used a statistical model to predict the end of month inventory for November. Here are the results for the top 25 metro areas. I left in the actuals from a few months in 2020 and 2021 as a reference. As expected the overall prediction is that the inventory in November will tick down due to seasonal changes. If the inventory actuals (released in a week’s time?) are better than the prediction then there is a positive momentum in inventory not accounted for by seasonal variation (and vice versa). If any one is interested, I can provide the model details.
Here are the results