Wholesale inventories rose in August

Wholesale inventories rose by 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted $464.32 billion in August, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday. Sales by U.S. wholesalers were a seasonally adjusted $401.26 billion, up 1 percent from July and up 15.2 percent from August 2010, the department's U.S. Census Bureau said in a release. Inventories of motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts and supplies were up 4.5 percent in August over July, and electrical and electronic goods were up 1.3 percent, the bureau said. Inventories of non-durable goods were off 0.6 percent from July, data indicated. The August inventories-to-sales ratio for merchant wholesalers, based on seasonally adjusted data, was 1-to-16, the Census Bureau said.