* US government remains headed for partial shutdown on March 1, but…
* April 30 may be more consequential for government shutdown risk
* Fed wants more “certainty” on inflation before rate cuts: Moody’s Analytics’ Zandi
* Hedge funds turn cautious on outlook for tech stocks
* Texas factory activity stabilizes in February
* New US home sales edged higher for a second month in January:

The slow decline of US housing inflation keeps economists guessing about the implications for the outlook for the broad pricing outlook. “There’s clearly something that’s happening that we don’t yet understand,” says Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. “They ask me, ‘What are you watching?’ I would say, ‘I’m watching housing because that’s the thing that’s still weird.’”