US wholesale inventories up moderately in June

U.S. wholesale inventories and sales rose moderately in June, indicating consumers remained confident of the economic outlook, the Commerce Department said on Friday.
Inventories at the wholesale level jumped 0.3 percent to 533.5 billion U.S. dollars in June after a downwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in May, it said.
Sales at the wholesale level rose 0.2 percent to 454.4 billion dollars in June, slower than a 0.7 percent expansion in a month earlier, data showed. That leaves the stock-to-sales ratio little unchanged at 1.17.
Sales of durable goods, such as autos and machinery, rose 1.4 percent from May, while sales of nondurable goods, including petroleum and groceries, declined 0.7 percent from the month earlier, the data showed.
Business inventories are a key component of gross domestic product (GDP) changes. The U.S. economy grew 4.0 percent in the second quarter, and private inventories contributed 1.66 percentage points to the growth.