Wholesale inventories in the U.S. increased slightly less than anticipated in July, as reported by the Commerce Department on Monday.
According to the Commerce Department, wholesale inventories edged up by 0.2% in July, while revised data for June indicated that inventories remained unchanged.
Economists had projected a 0.3% rise in wholesale inventories, compared to the initially reported 0.2% increase for the previous month.
The modest uptick in wholesale inventories was driven by a 0.5% climb in non-durable goods inventories, while durable goods inventories saw a marginal increase of 0.1%.
Additionally, the report highlighted that wholesale sales surged by 1.1% in July, following a revised decline of 0.3% in June.
Leading this increase were sales of non-durable goods, which jumped by 1.6%, while sales of durable goods rose by 0.5%.
As sales grew more significantly than inventories, the inventories-to-sales ratio for merchant wholesalers slightly decreased to 1.35 in July, down from 1.36 in June.
