Fed Chairman Bernanke together with the other members of the Federal Open Market Committee will gather for a two-day meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss monetary policy plans for the next six weeks.
The text and tone of the Fed's post-meeting statement on Wednesday afternoon carries the greatest potential to shift the trend trajectory of mortgage interest rates. In the unlikely event the Fed chooses to tweak the language in their post-meeting statement to reflect their growing confidence in the economic recovery - and/or to provide a wink and a nod to those expecting policymakers to begin nudging their benchmark short-term interest rates higher on a sooner rather than later basis - expect mortgage interest rates to creep yet higher. On the other hand, should the Fed decide to leave the verbiage in their post meeting statement unchanged -- look for mortgage interest rates to remain near current levels.
The coming week will be a very active period in the credit markets. Uncle Sam will be conducting a record setting $129 billion four-part debt auction beginning on Monday and concluding on Thursday.
The economic data scheduled for release this week is very light - with the two most significant reports -- the estimate of first-quarter economic activity as measured by Gross Domestic Product and the first-quarter Employment Cost Index - taking center stage on Friday morning. Both guesstimates are expected to be mortgage market neutral.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment