All posts tagged: Mortgage Rates

The prior week showed a surprising display of inflation, in that for consumers, it was less than expected. This is giving way to some optimism that inflation is on the right track to being under control.

On the other end of the spectrum, for producers, inflation had shown to be slightly higher than expected. But the far higher impact of the two reports is the Consumer Price Index.

The Federal Reserve had still stuck to their stance as from the last FOMC opting to withhold any rate reduction decisions until late in the year, but the data coming in largely on a positive note has changed the previously highly negative outlooks into a neutral stance.

An extremely light week following the FOMC, with the only note-worthy reporting being the Consumer Sentiment reports from the University of Michigan, which gives a long term outlook of the consumer on the economy. The report has come in well under expectations, much more so than any previous release in the last 6 months. This is largely due to the increase in the cost of living for every sector.

With the passing of the Federal Open Market Committee rate decision panel, we now have definitively confirmed that the Federal Reserve intends to keep the rates at a two-decade high, for the sixth straight meeting by a unanimous vote.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is widely expected to maintain the current federal funds rate target range of 5.25% to 5.50%. This decision comes amidst conflicting economic signals. Tailing that, there is the Chicago PMI, Non-farm Payrolls, and the full release of the Consumer Confidence report. All of these are expected to match current economic conditions.

The prior week’s GDP numbers also factor into the equation, informing that economic growth has slowed this year compared to the previous year for Quarter 1. The PCE Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred choice of inflation indicators, has shown inflation is within expectations but the whole picture is clear.

Last week, the largest report was the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, leading into chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell speaking on the current state of the economy and the stance of the Federal Reserve. While the Beige Book has indicated some positive movement towards a strong economy, there have been many indicators from all inflation data that inflation has yet to be tamed to the standards of the Federal Reserve.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is showing higher than expected inflation, and the Producer Price Index (PPI) is showing lower than expected inflation. The two are in conflict with each other; however, the Consumer Price Index is still the far greater indicator for inflation as it directly impacts the cost of living for everyone, not just production assets.

With the upcoming CPI and PPI reports this week, last week still had a number of important data points to consider. First, the non-farm payroll data, helping reveal the situation of pay versus inflation data giving an overall description of the state of the economy in the future. Among that, the manufacturing data has shown to be contracting the past year, with the first signs of relief this month. Lastly, trade data has shown that the trade deficit has grown bigger than expected with Q1 coming to completion.

As expected from the prior inflation reports with CPI and PPI, the PCE index had also shown the same corollary among its data points, reporting a higher than expected increase for the month of February across all products.

In addition, the Chicago PMI had shown a declining trend of activity among businesses for the 6th week in a row. All this points to that there might be a case for the Federal Reserve to continue holding rates in the next rate decision coming up in the summer of 2024. There has been much speculation that the Federal Reserve will begin cutting rates at this time; however this is evidence of the contrary.

While it’s not a set deal, the Federal Reserve does appear to be on track for a June rate cut, and following its two-day policy meeting, the central bank’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said it will keep its benchmark overnight borrowing rate in a range between 5.25%-5.5% until then.

Additionally, the government has also avoided another shut down as a series of rushed bills had approved spending for the government by another 1.2 trillion dollars. This is good news for lending markets as the debt ceiling has previously tied up rate decisions in the past.

Last week’s inflation data came in at a higher rate than expected, with Price Producer Index (PPI) numbers showing more than double the expected inflation gain.

With both CPI and PPI being over the target, the steadfast certainty that the Federal Reserve will cut rates has now taken a step back, resulting in more tamed expectations for the near future.

With a mixed response from lending partners, this may end up rapidly changing in the next round of discussions with the Federal Reserve’s Chairman Jerome Powell this coming week, as well as a final rate decision.