{"id":42238,"date":"2017-03-16T13:18:18","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T17:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/?p=42238"},"modified":"2017-03-16T13:18:18","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T17:18:18","slug":"federal-reserve-interest-rate-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/?p=42238","title":{"rendered":"Federal Reserve Interest Rate Update"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates today for the second time in three months, a move made<\/p>\n

based on steady economic growth. The increase followed last Friday\u2019s strong jobs report, which showed 235,000<\/p>\n

payroll gains in February, as well as faster wage growth and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.7%.<\/p>\n

The decision to lift the target overnight interest rate by <\/span><\/span>25 basis points <\/span><\/span>to a range of 0.75 percent to 1.00 percent<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

marked one of the Fed\u2019s most convincing steps yet in the effort to return monetary policy to a more normal footing.<\/p>\n

The Fed’s policy-setting committee did not flag any plan to accelerate the pace of monetary tightening. The<\/p>\n

committee indicated that further rate increases would be gradual, maintaining their prior forecast for two more rate<\/p>\n

hikes this year and three more in 2018. <\/span><\/span>The Fed lifted rates once in 2016.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Mortgage rate have risen since the election but remain historically low. During the last economic expansion<\/p>\n

from 2001 \u2013 2007, mortgage rates hovered between 5% and 7%. In the 1990\u2019s, rates were even higher, skirting<\/p>\n

between 7% and 9%.<\/p>\n

With consumer confidence high, employment strong and continued low rates, it is a good time for consumers<\/p>\n

to consider a real estate purchase or a mortgage refinance prior to potential future rate increases.<\/p>\n

Source: Reuters & CBS Money Watch<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As expected, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates today for the second time in three months, a move made based on steady economic growth. The increase followed last Friday\u2019s strong jobs report, which showed 235,000 payroll gains in February, as well as faster wage growth and a drop in the unemployment rate to 4.7%. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[5,9,21,37,43,59,83,85,105,107],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.myewm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}