Wholesale inventories increased 0.1% in December, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Wholesale sales slid 0.4%.
Economists expected inventories would increase 0.2% and sales would slip 0.2%, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Inventories for November were up an unrevised 0.8%. November sales were off 0.4%, first reported as a 0.3% decrease.
Inventories of durable goods were up 0.2% in December following a 0.9% increase in November. Sales of durable goods increased 1.1% in December following a 0.3% rise in November.
Inventories of nondurable goods fell 0.1% in December following a 0.6% rise in November. Sales of nondurable goods dropped 1.7% in December following a 1.1% decline in November.
The inventories-to-sales ratio grew to 1.22 in December from 1.21 in November. A year ago the inventories-to-sales ratio was 1.16%.
