Wholesale Inventories Rise in August

.S. wholesale inventories rose 0.5% in August, the most in four months, the Commerce Department said Friday.

The increase brought the total value of inventories to $354.5 billion, Commerce said, and followed a revised 0.1% gain in July that had originally been reported as a 0.1% decline.

Analysts had forecast a 0.4% increase, Bloomberg reported. The department said it could not quantify the effect of Hurricane Katrina on inventories for August, Bloomberg reported.

The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures the amount of time wholesale goods went unsold, fell to 1.17 months from 1.18 months in July.

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