Auto Dealers Boost Inventories

Auto dealers restocked their lots with new cars in December and wholesale sales posted their sharpest jump in more than a year, the Commerce Department said Wednesday in a report that bolstered the impression of a surging economy at the beginning of 1999.

Total inventories increased 0.5% to a seasonally adjusted $287.25 billion, exceeding Wall Street economists’ forecasts of a 0.3% rise, after a 0.7% rise in November.

A 4.1% bounce in new-car inventories led the inventory pickup as car makers, especially General Motors Corp., continued adding to dealers’ stocks of cars in the wake of a summer strike at GM, and new car sales boomed.

The Commerce Department said it was the biggest addition to new car stocks in 1 1/2 years, since a 4.7% increase in June 1997, and it followed a 0.7% runoff in inventories in November.

Total wholesale sales shot up by 1.2% to $217.39 billion--the biggest monthly pickup since a 1.7% increase in September 1997--after a 0.7% November rise.