Under the Hood of U.S. Wholesalers Is Huge Q1 Inventory Drag

Here’s one key takeaway from the Commerce Department’s report Friday on February wholesale inventories: There’s going to be a much bigger drag on first-quarter U.S. gross domestic product from diminished stockpiling than most economists forecast before the report.

* The 0.5 percent drop in inventories was the biggest since May 2013 and the previously reported 0.2 percent gain in January was revised away to show a 0.2 percent drop. That prompted economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York to lower their tracking estimate of first-quarter growth to 0.2 percent from 0.7 percent before the report.