Canada: Wholesale sales rose 0.3% to $63.1 billion in December

"St. Louis Federal Reserve (Fed) President James Wholesale sales rose 0.3% to $63.1 billion in December following a 1.1% decline in November," Statistics Canada said on Thursday. This reading came in better than the market expectation for a decline of 0.1%.

Key takeaways from the press release

• Sales were up in four of seven subsectors, representing about 64% of total wholesale sales.
• In volume terms, wholesale sales increased 0.3%.
• Wholesale inventories were up 1.9% in December, pushing the inventory-to-sales ratio to 1.43—the highest level since November 1995.