In April, U.S. wholesale inventories nudged up slightly less than anticipated, as revealed in a report by the Commerce Department on Friday.
The report noted a 0.1 percent increase in wholesale inventories for April, following a revised 0.5 percent decline in March. Economists had projected a 0.2 percent rise, compared to the initially reported 0.4 percent decrease for the previous month.
This slight uptick in wholesale inventories resulted from a 0.5 percent increase in durable goods inventories, which was nearly counterbalanced by a 0.5 percent decline in non-durable goods inventories.
Additionally, the report indicated a 0.1 percent rise in wholesale sales for April, rebounding from a 1.3 percent drop in March. Sales of durable goods increased by 0.2 percent, while sales of non-durable goods remained almost unchanged.
Despite these minor increases in both inventories and sales, the inventories-to-sales ratio for merchant wholesalers remained stable at 1.35, consistent with the previous month.
