Wholesale inventories increased 1.1% in January, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.
Wholesale sales increased 3.4%.
Economists expected inventories would increase 0.9% and sales would gain 0.7%, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Inventories for December were revised higher to a 1.3% rise from the 1.0% gain reported last month. December sales were up a revised 1.1%, originally reported as a 0.4% increase.
Inventories of durable goods increased 1.1% in January following a 1.0% rise in December. Sales of durable goods rose 2.3% in the month after a 1.6% uptick in December.
The inventories-to-sales ratio decreased to 1.13 in January from 1.15 in December.
“Despite this month’s strength, wholesale inventory investment is, so far this quarter, weaker than it was in” the fourth quarter of 2010, according to Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics, “suggesting that inventory investment may subtract yet again from” first-quarter 2011 gross domestic product.
