The Fed wants more proof!
The Federal Reserve Board meeting is over and there was good news and bad news. The good news is that they didn’t raise rates and held them where they were as expected. The bad news, well, there was more than just a little bad news, is the comments weren’t as encouraging as many had hoped, and the Fed “Dot Plot Chart” shows that they believe the Fed Funds Rate will stay above 5% for the rest of this year, possibly another hike this year, and the bad news doesn’t end there. The projections for 2024 rates are surprising. While 9 felt the Fed Funds Rate would fall below 5%, with the low projected at 4.25%; 10 members still have the Fed Funds Rate above 5% with even one projecting a rate that is past 6%!
I don’t believe you need to panic, the Dot Plot Chart has pretty much been a useless exercise, if you just look back at past projects, you would be safe to say that it isn’t a good piece of data to make any wagers on! The issues are, people and markets read it, social media folks will hype it, and sadly, some will make some poor choices because of it. But the markets have to deal with it, and so do you and me!
I still believe the Fed has over tightened. The fact that they are even considering another hike before the end of the year is very disappointing. The key for us is to share the news and share that it doesn’t appear that mortgage rates will be heading lower until the Federal Reserve Board starts looking at real time data and acting on actual information instead of seasonal adjustments and algorithms.
Remember when I said that those who didn’t act when rates moved out of the 3% range because rates were going to go lower? What about those at 4% or 5%? Do we even talk about 6% and 7%? Remember the bumper stickers with the patches I shared? Many of you laughed back then. Maybe those rates were better than we thought?
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