Wholesale inventories rose in October

U.S. wholesale inventories rose 1 percent in December, reaching $473.2 billion, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Inventories were up 10 percent from December 2010, the department said, while the November estimate was revised upward by 0.1 percent or $400 million. Wholesale sales for December were up 1.3 percent from November to $413.1 billion, a jump of 11.8 percent from December 2010. The inventory-to-sales ratio -- reflecting how many months it would take a company to deplete its inventory at the current sales pace -- came in at 1.15, slightly lower than the ratio a year earlier, which stood at 1.16.