This smells like 2008… Bulls, you’ve become far too complacent in the face of collapsed performance.

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Demand for adjustable-rate mortgages surges, as interest rates make biggest jump in 13 years

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  • Mortgage applications to purchase a home rose 8% last week compared with the previous week, bolstered in part by demand for adjustable-rate mortgages, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
  • A big jump in mortgage rates may have actually spurred homebuyer demand, perhaps as consumers worried rates would move even higher.
  • “The average loan size, at just over $420,000, is well below its $460,000 peak earlier this year and is potentially a sign that home price-growth is moderating,” said Joel Kan, an economist for the MBA.

Powell “Strongly Committed” to Hiking Interest Rates

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testified in Congress on June 22 that the central bank remains determined to keep hiking interest rates high enough to cool the red-hot inflation, acknowledging that recession is “certainly a possibility” but insisting the American economy is robust enough to withstand tighter financial conditions.

With decades-high inflation running “well above” the Fed’s longer-run target of around 2 percent, Powell told the Senate Banking Committee that restrictive monetary policies are needed to quell price pressures and that “you will see continued expeditious progress toward higher rates.”

Finding itself behind the curve on inflation that has risen higher and stayed elevated longer than it previously predicted, the Fed recently raised the benchmark federal funds rate by 75 basis points, the biggest jump since 1994. Markets are now pricing in a 91 percent chance of another 0.75 percentage point hike at the Fed’s next policy meeting in July.

 

 

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