WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) -- U.S. wholesale inventories rose 0.3 percent in March, reaching $480.4 billion, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.
Inventories were up 8.4 percent from March 2011, the department said, while the February estimate, considered a preliminary estimate, was unchanged, the department said.
The figures are adjusted for seasonal variations, but not for price changes.
Wholesale sales for March, also adjusted seasonally but not for prices, rose 0.5 percent month-to-month and 7.8 percent from a year earlier. February's sales estimate was revised down by 0.1 percent or $400 million.
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 1.17, slightly higher than the ratio a year earlier, which stood at 1.15.
