US Business Inventories Expand in July

U.S. business inventories rose 0.2% in July to a seasonally adjusted $1.874 trillion, the Commerce Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.2% gain.

Manufacturing inventories were up 0.2% and wholesaler inventories increased 0.6% from a month earlier. Retailers decreased stockpiles by 0.1% in July from June.

The inventory-to-sales ratio, which measures how many months it would take for firms to deplete inventories at the current sales pace, was 1.38 at the end of July, down from 1.40 a year earlier.

The Commerce Department data on business inventories can be found at http://www.census.gov/mtis/www/data/pdf/mtis_current.pdf

Write to Eric Morath at eric.morath@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 15, 2017 10:15 ET (14:15 GMT)