Mortgage rates are unchanged this morning.
All eyes are focused on today’s Fed “festivities”. Like normal, the Fed will wrap up it’s 2-day monetary policy meeting today and conclude it with a brief monetary policy statement. What’s different this time around is that at 2:15 EST Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a 45-minute press conference in which he will take questions from reporters.
This is standard practice for other central banks such as the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan. The objective for the Fed is to make sure that their outlook is communicated clearly instead of leaving their words up for interpretation.
It is widely expected that the Fed will leave short-term interest rates unchanged, signal that they plan to complete QE2 by the end of June, and that they plan to keep short-term rates low for an extended period. Some analysts will listening for clues as to whether or not the Fed will consider further stimulative measures to help the economic recovery.
The US Treasury is back on the auction block with $35 billion in 5-year notes today.
Current Outlook: Locking