Short Term vs. Long Term
The Fed has raised interest rates again:
The action pushed the federal funds rate up to 3.25 percent. It marked the ninth increase in the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans and left this benchmark rate at its highest level since September 2001. When the Fed started its credit tightening campaign a year ago, the funds rate had been at a 46-year low of 1 percent.
And yet my wife and I just locked in a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 5.625%, lower than it would have been just a few months ago. I know that long term mortgages are tied to much different markets than what the fed directly controls, but this is still a little bizarre, no?



