Business inventories were essentially unchanged in the month of January, according to a report released by the Commerce Department on Friday, with modest decreases in wholesale and retail inventories offsetting a modest increase in manufacturers' inventories.

The report showed that business inventories came in unchanged in January following a revised 0.3 percent decrease in December. Economists had been expecting inventories to edge up by 0.1 percent compared to the 0.2 percent drop originally reported for the previous month.

At the same time, the Commerce Department said that business sales increased by 0.6 percent in January after rising by 1.0 percent in December. The continued growth was partly due to a 1.3 percent jump in sales by merchant wholesalers.

With inventories unchanged and sales rising, the business inventories/sales ratio fell to 1.25 in January from 1.26 in December. With the decrease, the ratio fell to its lowest level since November of 2007.

Peter Boockvar, equity strategist for Miller Tabak, said, "While we've seen a helpful contribution to GDP from the slowdown in inventory drawdowns, the hoped for build up is still not evident in the data. With this said, if the recent retail sales gains are more than just a blip, production will pick up."