Fed live blog: All the latest from the central bank’s September decision
“I have received numerous calls where current clients want to lock ahead of the Fed decision as they are extremely concerned,” he said. “I have also had numerous conversations over the past week explaining that the Federal Reserve does not directly control mortgage rates, even though Fed policy can influence the broader bond market and rate environment.”
Geopolitical challenges have made the Fed’s job more difficult, which makes predicting what’s going to happen next tough.
Selma Hepp, chief economist at Cotality, said the Fed has a lot to take in before making any rate decisions.
“The Fed faces an increasingly difficult balancing act,” Hepp said. “Recent inflation readings suggest progress toward the 2% target has stalled, but much of the pressure comes from areas not particularly sensitive to interest rates, including energy, tariffs, fiscal deficits, and the massive wave of AI-related infrastructure investment.”
In the end, the central bank has been clear that it has fallen short of delivering stable prices, and it had a need to address that side of the mandate, especially when jobs numbers remain strong. However, Hepp isn’t sure that a rate hike fights the kind of inflation that the US is currently dealing with.
