Nondurable goods orders and shipments dropped 1.4% in February from January according to a new report from the Department of Commerce.

This is likely a short-term war and weather inventory adjustment and not the onset of a new declining trend, said Jim Haughey, Newport Communications' senior economist. The declines were in all industries except petroleum, where rising prices pushed sales up 1.9%.
A decline was expected following the outsized 2.5% gain over the prior two months, pushing January shipments almost 7% above last January. But February's 1.1% jump in manufacturers' inventories means that their sales fell short of expectations, assuring a production slowdown to rebalance inventories.
February retail sales were restrained by a severe snowstorm that canceled the Presidents' Day shopping weekend in the Northeast, as well as by caution as the war with Iraq approached. The snow has now melted and the initial war news is fairly good, Haughey said, so shipments should return by the end of spring to the +0.3% per month trend consistent with GDP growth.
Durable goods shipments fell 1.7% in February. Impending war and weather were also negative contributors here, but this sector is fundamentally much weaker -- with at best a flat trend expected into the summer.