Business inventories were up 0.4% to $1.793 trillion in April, while sales were 0.6% higher at $1.319 trillion, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.
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The April inventories followed an unrevised 0.1% increase in March, while sales were revised to a 0.6% gain from the originally reported 0.4% growth in March.
On a year-over-year basis, inventories climbed 2.6% over the same month in 2014, while sales slid 2.3% in that period.
The total business inventories/sales ratio, based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of April, was 1.36, unchanged from the previous month's 1.36 ratio. The inventory/sales ratio for April 2014 was 1.29.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected a 0.2% increase in inventories.
