NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Wholesale inventories in the United States fell for the eighth straight month in January, the government said Monday, another sign of the end of a recession in the world's largest economy.

The Commerce Department reported that inventories at U.S. businesses fell 0.2 percent in January to $287.7 billion after falling a revised 0.5 percent in December. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected inventories to fall 0.4 percent.

The department also said sales rose 1.2 percent in January to $225.2 billion after falling a revised 0.5 percent in December. It was the biggest gain in sales since a 1.2-percent jump in June 2000, though sales are still 3.7 percent below the level in January 2001.

Wall Street was unmoved by the report, with stock prices mixed and Treasury bond prices mostly higher.

Inventory levels at wholesalers and manufacturers swelled in 2000 after the late-1990s business-spending bubble burst. The sudden drop-off in demand led to a 19-month-long recession in the manufacturing sector and, eventually, a recession in the broader economy.

But the steady decline in inventories in recent months has helped set the stage for an increase in production and a recovery in the manufacturing sector, which finally started growing again in February, according to the Institute of Supply Management.

To keep consumers spending despite more than a million job cuts and in turn help fuel an eventual recovery, the Fed cut its target for short-term interest rates 11 times in 2001, to levels not seen since 1961.

But the Fed decided to leave rates alone at its latest policy meeting, pointing to declining inventories as one sign that the economy was ready to recover, and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has since told Congress that the recovery was under way.