The New York Fed released its Survey of Consumer Expectations for February revealing that consumer spending growth expectations spiked, while inflation expectations edge back up. The findings show that median one-year-ahead inflation expectations increased to 6.0% in February from 5.8% in January. Median year-ahead home price change expectations decreased to 5.7% from 6.0%. Median expectations about year-ahead price changes for food and gas increased by 3.3 and 1.5 percentage points to 9.2% and 8.8%, respectively.

It's Fed week! The two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting kicks off on Tuesday and ends Wednesday with the 2:00 p.m. ET release of the monetary policy statement. It is expected that the Fed will raise the short-term Fed Funds Rate (FFR) by 0.25% while the Fed's massive balance reduction will be discussed. The FFR is the rate at which commercial banks borrow and lend their excess reserves held at the Federal Reserve Banks to each other overnight. The current rate is 0.25% making the Prime Rate 3.25% ... FFR + 3 points.

AAA reports that after hitting $130 a barrel for crude oil early last week, the price has dropped to just over $100 thus halting the surge in the price of gas at the pumps. The motor club reports that after hitting an all-time high of $4.32 last week for a regular gallon of gasoline, the price has remained at that level. Today's national average for a gallon of gas is $4.32, which is 26 cents more than a week ago, 84 cents more than a month ago, and $1.47 more than a year ago.