Anyone who watches Bernanke’s Congressional testimony knows that lawmakers ignore his testimony because they’re too excited about Q&A—a chance to drill their vote-pandering messages in question form (e.g., Why does Fed help banks and not consumers?). Then Bernanke repeats the economic outlook and FOMC strategies he just laid out moments before. Today’s 2:15 ET press [...]

We’ve had five weeks of net flat rates, but it hasn’t come without wild intraday swings of about +/-.25%. Daily swings matter because people enter into real estate transactions and must lock rates daily. And when rates move so much each day, nobody knows if upside swings will stick. Five-week hindsight makes it seem simple, [...]

Dallas Fed president was out in force last week with anti-inflation warnings, first during an interview with Reuters, then during a speech in Brussels. Yet throughout the crisis recovery period, he’s used his position on the FOMC to vote for near-zero overnight rates and to press forward with two rounds (and more than $2 trillion [...]

Today’s Fed statement acknowledges economic recovery is on “firmer footing,” and while the Fed acknowledges inflationary concerns, it’s choosing to ignore inflation pressure for now and keeping overnight bank-to-bank target Fed Funds Rates at 0-.25%, and keeping the overnight Fed-to-bank Discount Rates at .75%. They also said they’d keep going with their second round of [...]

Following the last Fed policy statement of 2010 (below), rates continue higher—30yr fixed 5% today vs. 4% on October 8—as mortgage and Treasury bond prices continue to trade lower on the 4 rate themes of recent weeks. The Fed noted that “the economic recovery is continuing” and that they’d continue the $600b+ Treasury buying (QE2) [...]

Following it’s sixth meeting of 2010, the Federal Open Market Committee voted to keep the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds rate at a target of 0-.25%, and the overnight Fed-to-bank Discount Rate at .75%. The statement (below) talks about ongoing threats to economic recovery, and mortgage bonds have rallied strongly (currently up 72 basis points) since [...]

Mortgage bonds closed up 19 basis points today following a Fed meeting where they kept their low rate stance. Mortgage lender rate sheets didn’t decrease commensurately as lenders held the line ahead of a 10yr Treasury note auction Wednesday and a 30yr T-Bond auction Thursday. Lenders do this because longer-dated Treasury auctions compete with mortgage [...]

The Federal Open Market Committee voted today to keep the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate steady at 0-0.25% and the overnight Fed-to-bank discount rate at .75%, citing subdued inflation that’s likely to continue for “some time.” For the fourth straight meeting in 2010, Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig dissented on the belief that modest [...]

Rate Snapshot It’s quite surprising that rate volatility has been minimal for three weeks. As such, zero-point rates on 30yr fixed Conforming loans (up to $729k) held last week near record lows for a third straight week, and one-point rates on Jumbo loans (above $729k) remain steady in the low- to mid-5% range. Rates for [...]

The Fed just made it’s announcement following today’s FOMC meeting. All FOMC members except for Thomas Hoenig voted to leave the overnight bank-to-bank Fed Funds Rate the same at 0.25%. There was no reference to the Fed-to-bank Discount Rate, which is currently at 0.75% following a surprise 0.25% hike last month. As usual, the press [...]