REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
On Friday the latest report on personal income and spending, which also gives us the Fed's preferred "core" PCE inflation measure, beat expectations all around.
And the big takeaway is that "core" prices - which exlcude the more volatile cost of food and gas - rose 1.7% over the prior year in January, topping expectations for 1.5% and indicating that inflation pressures are starting to perk up in the economy.
The Fed's inflation target is 2%.
Earlier this month we got data that showed the consumer price index rose 2.2% over last year on a "core" basis, the fastest in over four years.
Personal income rose 0.5% in January as did personal spending, both beating expectations.
Expectations were for the report to show a 0.4% increase in income during January while spending was set to rise 0.3%.
More to come ...