Washington, DC, January 11—-Wholesale inventories rose a steeper-than-expected 1.1 percent in November as stocks increased across a wide variety of categories, including cars and computers, a government report showed on Monday.
Economists expected a milder 0.7 percent rise in wholesale inventories after October's 1.1 percent gain, but financial markets largely shrugged off the report.
Despite the larger-than-expected gain, a 0.7 percent increase in sales kept the inventory-to-sales ratio -- a measure of how long it would take to deplete inventories at the current sales pace -- at a lean 1.15 months' worth, the Commerce Department said.
The rise in inventories reflected a 1.3 percent gain in stocks of durable goods -- big-ticket items meant to last three years or more -- and a 0.9 gain in shorter-lived items.
Automobile inventories, which had dropped 1.6 percent in October, climbed 0.5 percent as sales dropped 2.3 percent, metal stocks gained 3.9 percent and computer inventories shot up 4.0 percent.
The report could lead economists to bump up their predictions of fourth-quarter economic growth.
