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U.S. business inventories rose faster than sales in April, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.
Sales rose 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted $1.249 trillion. They were up 5.4 percent from April 2011.
Manufacturers' and trade inventories, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $1,575.1 billion, up 0.4 percent from March 2012 and up 6 percent from April 2011.
The total business inventories/sales ratio based on seasonally adjusted data at the end of April was 1.26.
By comparison, the April 2011 ratio was 1.25.
