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STORY: Gross domestic product (GDP) increased at a 3.4% annualized rate last quarter, revised up from the previously reported 3.2% pace, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said in its third estimate of fourth-quarter GDP.

The revision reflected upgrades in consumer spending, business investment as well as state and local government spending.

Gross domestic income (GDI) grew at a robust 4.8% rate after increasing at a 1.9% pace in the July-September quarter. That "basically just captures the income of the goods and services that have been transacted inside the economy," Luschini explained.

In principle, GDP and GDI should be equal, but in practice differ as they are estimated using different and largely independent source data.

Still, "there was some concern, as there was a widening delta between GDP and GDI, that perhaps GDP was overstating the pace of economic activity."

But Thursday's data, showing that that gap has narrowed, suggests "more symmetry in the data confirming the strength of the economy," Luschini said.