The Commerce Department reported that rebounding sales...

The Commerce Department reported that rebounding sales helped dampen growth of business inventories in February to a slight 0.1% after four big monthly increases. The department said inventories increased by only $825 million, pushing the total of unsold items on store shelves and back lots to a seasonally adjusted $715.9 billion. The small gain followed a string of much steeper increases that came in the months after the stock market crash. Inventories rose 0.7% in January, 0.9% in December, 0.8% in November and 1.2% in October.