Income, expenditures not much changed

Personal income decreased 0.2 percent, and disposable personal income decreased 0.1 percent in February. Personal consumption expenditures increased 0.2 percent.

Oops. I was caught by the two releases in March trap set for the personal income and expenditures report. The report was pretty much a non-event, as it turns out, but did reduce our diffusion index of economic news to 40.8 for March. That's still a big jump from February, which in turn had edged up from January. We're still running below 50 percent, however. (Whether or not 50 percent is a significant deal on our measure remains to be seen.)