Since perhaps February, the Federal Reserve's rate-makers have been adamant that data — and only data — will guide when the central bank stats to cut interest rates.

With inflation being sticky at something under 3% a year and the Fed goal of achieving 2% annual inflation, the conventional wisdom was there might be one, maybe two rate cuts in 2024.

A few central bankers have suggested there was no need to cut rates at all in 2024.

Related: Analyst revamps S&P 500 target ahead of CPI inflation report

Now, there's talk that rate cuts may come sooner rather than later, and there could be as many as three this year.

Two rate cuts seems to be the more likely possibility, but three is starting to make the most sense, according to two investing experts.

'Get ahead of the problem,' analyst says

"It's all about risk management," Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research, said on CNBC's Closing Bell program on Monday.

Unemployment is starting to rise — slowly, perhaps a tenth of a percentage point in each of the last three months, he said. And inflation is falling and likely to continue to fall.

Bankruptcies — whether business or personal — are rising.

And there's nothing that says the Fed should wait to be absolutely certain, he said. Inflation is slipping. Stock-market gains are increasingly the result of gains for fewer and few stocks.

So, Dutta advised the central bank: Why not get ahead of the problem?

The Fed usually makes dramatic cuts when it's clear the economy is slumping badly.

But he noted, the Fed has cut rates on at least two occasions — in 1995 and 2019 — when a recession was not not unfolding.

Related: Fed's Powell speech, CPI inflation to roil stocks this week

A 'fine' jobs report also shows issues

The economy is showing strains, according to Peter Tchir, a contributor to theStreet.com Pro and head of macro strategy at Academy Securities, a Connecticut money-management firm.

In a Monday post, Tchir suggests the Fed could cut three times in 2024, with cuts totalling 0.75%.

The June jobs report, released on July 5, highlighted Tchir's concern. The domestic jobs report was fine on the surface. That said, he wrote, the jobs market is "no longer robust and certainly not one sided in terms of job seekers like it was for much of 2023."

Then, using the Taylor Rule Utility to argue the fed funds rate is too high. This is a calculator on the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta website that lets users calculate what the federal funds rate should using different scenarios.