Wholesale inventories up slightly

WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- U.S. wholesale inventories rose 0.4 percent in December, reaching $475.5 billion, the Commerce Department said Friday.

Inventories were up 9.4 percent from January 2011, the department said, while the December estimate was revised upward by 0.1 percent or $500 million.

Wholesale sales for January were down 0.1 percent from December to $413.1 billion, a jump of 7.9 percent from January 2011.

The inventory-to-sales ratio -- reflecting how many months it would take a company to deplete its inventory at the current sales pace -- came in at 1.15, slightly higher than the ratio a year earlier, which stood at 1.14.