Inflation is not a threat

Last Week in Review: No rate hikes in 2019. Who wins?

Stocks continued to react positively to Fed Chair Powell's Jan 4th speech, where he essentially said, "we have your back"...meaning that the Fed will be flexible and may not raise rates at all in 2019. 

There is an old saying in the financial markets - "don't fight the Fed." This means that if the Fed is saying or doing something (hinting no rate hikes) that helps Stocks, that theme will continue until the story changes. 

Typically, when stocks move higher, so do long-term rates, like home loans. And this past week, we saw the recent nice trend of lower rates get disrupted. 

Even though the recent trend of lower rates, the lowest since the Spring, is very much at risk - we should not expect long-term rates to move too high. Why? Inflation is not a threat. 

Fed President Bullard, also said he expects inflation to be near current levels for the next FIVE years. If that is the case, home loan rates will remain relatively attractive for longer than most expect.