Personal income and spending rose again in January, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. The news offers fresh ammunition for arguing that the trend remains encouraging for two key pillars of the economy. But there’s some fine print to consider. It remains to be seen how (or if?) the Middle East turmoil, and the associated rise in energy prices, will alter consumer behavior. As such, the February numbers may already be dated. Meanwhile, the jump in income last month was primarily due to a new cut in payroll taxes that began last month. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it’s not the same thing as saying that companies were handing out big raises last month.

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James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of Crowds makes a strong case for thinking that large groups of people are generally smarter than even the most intelligent few. The “wisdom” manifests itself in many ways, including price discovery, which is why indexing is such a competitive force in money management. A new research paper seems to reconfirm this point via the broad ebb and flow of mutual fund results. But on closer inspection, there’s an intriguing nuance in this study that raises questions about whether investors generally are taking advantage of rebalancing’s rewards.

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