Mubasher: US wholesale inventories expanded by the end of July, according to official final estimate released.

Wholesale inventories, excluding manufacturing sales branches, came in at $679.1 billion last July, rising by 0.2% from the revised $677.9 billion in June, the US Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said.

Nevertheless, stockpiles at wholesalers climbed by 7.1% in July, compared to the revised reading in the same month of last year.

Sales of merchant wholesalers went up by 0.3% to $499.6 billion month-on-month, but they recorded no change from the same month of the prior year.

At July’s sales pace, wholesalers would take 1.36 months to clear shelves, unchanged from the same pace recorded in the June, and faster than the ratio of 1.27 observed in the same month last year.

By 2:02 pm GMT, the dollar index, which traces the US currency against a basket of six major rivals, climbed by 0.39% to 98.71.