The US Commerce Department reported an unexpected decrease in wholesale inventories throughout January. After an increase of 0.4% in December, inventories fell 0.3% in the following month. Analysts had predicted a more modest decline of 0.1%.
The steeper-than-anticipated decline was primarily due to a significant 1.0% decrease in non-durable goods inventories, which overshadowed a slight rise of 0.2% in durable goods.
In addition to changes in inventories, wholesale sales experienced a downturn in January, falling by 1.7%. This came after a modest rise of 0.3% in December. Non-durable goods sales decreased by a significant 2.5% for the month, and durable goods sales also slid by 0.7%.
Due to the larger drop in sales as compared to inventories, the inventories-to-sales ratio for wholesale merchants went up, moving from 1.34 in December to 1.36 in January.
