Wholesale Inventories Jump in September

.S. wholesale inventories rose 0.6% in September, the biggest gain in more than a year, the Commerce Department said Thursday.

The increase brought the total value of inventories to $356.5 billion, Commerce said, and followed a 0.5% gain in August.

Analysts had forecast a 0.3% increase, Bloomberg reported.

The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures the amount of time wholesale goods went unsold, fell to 1.15 months, the lowest in five months, from 1.17 months in August.

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