by Calculated Risk on 12/13/2016 06:24:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Steady-to-Lower Ahead of Fed Day

Mortgage rates started stronger out of the gate, but morning weakness in bond markets prompted many lenders to adjust rates higher by early afternoon. On balance, the average lender ended the day just a hair better than yesterday's latest levels. To be clear, we're talking about microscopic differences. Note rates are the same as yesterday. The most prevalent conventional 30yr fixed quote is 4.25%, followed closely by 4.125%. The microscopic improvement refers to changes in upfront costs/credits.

In the bigger picture, rates remain very close to the highest levels in more than 2 years.
emphasis added

Wednesday:
• At 7:00 AM ET, The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

• At 8:30 AM, Retail sales for November will be released.  The consensus is for 0.4% increase in retail sales in November.

• At 8:30 AM, The Producer Price Index for November from the BLS. The consensus is for a 0..2% increase in prices, and a 0.2% increase in core PPI.

• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for November. The consensus is for a 0.2% decrease in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to decrease to 75.0%.

• At 10:00 AM, Manufacturing and Trade: Inventories and Sales (business inventories) report for October.  The consensus is for no change in inventories.

• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Meeting Announcement. The FOMC is expected to increase the Fed Funds rate 25 bps at this meeting.

• At 2:00 PM, FOMC Forecasts This will include the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) participants' projections of the appropriate target federal funds rate along with the quarterly economic projections.

• At 2:30 PM, Fed Chair Janet Yellen holds a press briefing following the FOMC announcement.