When it comes to interest rates falling, eventually that has to involve the Federal Reserve. The central bank, as its top officials keep saying, look at data. Maybe the most important for them is personal incomes and outlays from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The immediate good news is that things came in as expected, compared to the median forecast of economists that the Wall Street Journal polled.

"Personal income increased $233.7 billion (1.0 percent at a monthly rate) in January, according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis," they wrote. "Disposable personal income (DPI), personal income less personal current taxes, increased $67.6 billion (0.3 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $43.9 billion (0.2 percent).

Then the PCE price index was up 0.3% month-over-month. The core PCE index — without food or energy, eliminating the typically more volatile components to get a better view of trends — was up 0.4%. "Real DPI [adjusted for inflation] decreased less than 0.1 percent in January and real PCE decreased 0.1 percent; goods decreased 1.1 percent and services increased 0.4 percent," they said.