Interest Rate Update

The following are excerpts from the weekly newsletter of HSH Assoc. for the week ending April 18, 2008:

“True conforming 30-year FRMs jogged higher by 16 basis points this week, pressed higher by rising Treasury yields. Preliminary results for the “expanded conforming” FRMs found an increase of nineteen basis points (0.19%) as lenders and investors remain unsure of the market for them. True jumbos, already elevated in relation to those underlying rates, ticked just two basis points higher from last week’s 7.17%.

The Fed next meets a little more than a week from now, and there is at least some expectation of a quarter-point cut in key short-term interest rates. Those rates have already been lowered by some 225 basis points since January, and have moved in sizable blocks this year amid an intensifying downturn. With “real” (inflation-adjusted) rates already near zero, the Fed may be approaching the point where leaving rates alone could be the best course of action.”