Business inventories were up 0.1% to $1.786 trillion in March, while sales were 0.4% higher at $1.310 trillion, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.
The March inventories followed a downwardly revised 0.2% increase in February, originally reported as a 0.3% rise, while sales were revised to a 0.4% gain from the originally reported flat level in February.
On a year-over-year basis, inventories climbed 2.9% over the same month in 2014, while sales slid 2.1% in that period.
The total business inventories/sales ratio, based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of March, was 1.36, down from the previous month's 1.37 ratio. The inventory/sales ratio for March 2014 was 1.30.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters expected a 0.2% increase in inventories.
