Wholesale Inventories Rise 0.2% in May

U.S. wholesale inventories rose 0.2% in May, the biggest monthly gain since November, as stockpiles of nondurable items such as clothing, groceries and pharmaceuticals jumped 2%, the Commerce Department said. Economists polled by Reuters were expecting wholesale inventories would be unchanged in May from the month before.

Sales at U.S. wholesalers declined 0.1%. That put the inventory-to-sales ratio--a measure of how long it would take to deplete stocks at the current sales pace--at 1.32 months in May, up from 1.31 in April.

Wholesalers’ inventories of durable goods--big-ticket items meant to last for three or more years--fell 0.9%, the largest monthly decline since July 1997.