The Fed lowered the Fed Funds Rate by 0.750% to 2.250% yesterday. Because it is tied to the Fed Funds Rate, Prime Rate also fell by 0.750% yesterday. Prime Rate is now to 5.250%.
Holders of home equity lines of credit and credit card debt benefited from the change and will see lower interest costs in next month's statements.
Mortgage rate shoppers didn't.
In the statement above -- as explained by The Wall Street Journal -- the Fed expresses a growing concern of inflation from rising commodity prices such as oil. In part, this caused the mortgage bond market to sell off immediately following the press release.
Mortgage rates rose close to a quarter-percent yesterday.
The Federal Open Market Committee's statement leaves the possibility of future Fed Funds Rate cuts open. The FOMC's next scheduled meeting is a two-day affair April 29-30, 2008.
Source
Parsing the Fed Statement
The Wall Street Journal Online
March 18, 2008
http://online.wsj.com/internal/mdc/info-fedparse0803.html
