Wholesale inventories increased 0.4% in April, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Wholesale sales surged 1.6%.
Economists expected inventories would be up 0.2% and sales would rise 0.5%, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Inventories for March were a revised to show a 0.2% gain, first reported as a 0.1% increase. March sales were off 0.3%, first reported as a 0.2% decrease.
Inventories of durable goods were up 0.1% in April following a 0.5% increase in March. Sales of durable goods increased 1.2% in April following a 0.9% gain in March.
Inventories of nondurable goods rose 0.8% in April following a 0.3% dip in March. Sales of nondurable goods climbed 2.0% in April following a 1.4% drop in March.
The inventories-to-sales ratio slid to 1.29 in April from 1.30 in March. A year ago the inventories-to-sales ratio was 1.19%.
