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Wholesale inventories up
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March 9, 2000: 10:31 a.m. ET
January inventories rise 0.7%, nearly double expectations; sales gain 0.8%
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - U.S. wholesale inventories rose in January, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, as companies held on to excess stock accumulated in advance of the Y2K date change. Sales also gained as demand for goods continued at a robust pace.
Wholesale inventories rose 0.7 percent in January, above the 0.4 percent increase in December and almost double the 0.4 percent increase expected by economists polled by Briefing.com. Sales, meanwhile, gained 0.8 percent, slightly less than the 1.2 percent increase posted a month before.
Combined, the numbers suggest demand continued to outstrip supply at the start of the year, even as wholesalers held on to inventories in the wake of Y2K. "This number suggests that wholesalers were in no hurry to reverse their pre-Y2K inventory buildup as the new year began," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist with High Frequency Economics.
Stocks and bonds registered little reaction to the numbers, which are considered minor in nature because the time period they cover falls behind other, more up-to-date statistics on the economy. 
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