July Wholesale Inventories Decline, Commerce Says

nventories at U.S. wholesalers fell 0.1% in July, the Commerce Department said Thursday, turning around 17 straight rises in stockpiles.

The increase brought the total value of inventories to $352 billion, Commerce said, and followed a revised 0.4% gain a month earlier that had originally been reported at 0.7%.

Analysts had forecast a 0.6% increase, Bloomberg reported.

The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures the amount of time wholesale goods went unsold, fell to 1.18 months from 1.19 months in June.

Wholesale inventories account for about one-fourth of total business stockpiles.