Fra Noi Embrace Your Inner Italian
The Federal Reserve decided to leave rates alone at their mid-June meeting, citing a very weak jobs report in June and downward revisions to the two previous months of job reports.
The Fed raised short-term rates in December of 2015 for the first time in nine years because economic data indicated that the economy was finally on the mend.
The guidance that the Fed gave at that time was that they were planning on raising rates four times this year at a pace of a quarter of a point per raise.
The statement that the Fed made after the June meeting indicated that they were likely to scale back that estimate from four increases to two, and the two increases haven’t started yet.
The Fed also slightly scaled back their economic forecasts for the rest of 2016 and 2017. The upcoming months of economic news (particularly the jobs report) will tell us a lot about the state of the economy and where interest rates are heading.
For now, consumers are enjoying near historic lows for refinancing and buying new homes. Only time will tell where we will end up.
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