May 8, 2024 – 7:24 AM PDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. wholesale inventories fell in March, confirming that inventory investment was a drag on economic growth in the first quarter.
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The Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said on Wednesday that wholesale inventories fell 0.4% as estimated last month. Stocks at wholesalers rebounded 0.2% in February.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected that inventories, a key part of gross domestic product, would be unrevised. Inventories dropped 2.3% on a year-on-year basis in March.
Private inventory investment cut 0.35% percentage point from GDP growth in the first quarter, the government reported last month. It was the second straight quarter that inventories subtracted from GDP.
The economy grew at a 1.6% annualized rate in the January-March quarter, the slowest pace in nearly two…
