thats too many assumptions and potentially too much massaging... i prefer raw(er) data, from the last 20-30 years max... most of the stuff prior to this is 1) unreliable, 2) mostly irrelevant for the purpose of analysis... lifestyles have changed, so have demographics, migrations etc, in a pretty big way... time & space have contracted, access to information has accelerated in a pretty big way too... welcome to the 21st century ;-) gotta run... off to koh samui till next weds ;-) good luck with your trading
you're not alone in that. memory is short and supercycles might as well exist only on the moon these days thx and enjoy ur tan
No, the Fed can't force banks to lower it (that I know of). But the FED would lower rates as a RESPONSE to the nightmare scenario that I was responding to. If the prices of housing dropped 20 to 30%, people would "feel" poor and stop spending money. The Fed would short-term lower rates to stimulate the economy. At that point, I think long-term lenders would see less risk in lowering long term rates, and would do so in the spirit of competition. There is a loose correlation between long term and short term rates, but there definitely is a correlation over the long term. SM
No. Fed cannot. Correlation between short rate and 30-yr mortgage rate is close to zero. However, there are a lot of ARM mortgages whose rates are dependent on the short rates.