Portland Mortgage Market Update — August 16, 2024

This week had everything for mortgage rates. We had an early week rally after a promising PPI report then got hammered yesterday after retail sales came out. Currently we have recovered a little bit of yesterday's losses and are looking good headed into the weekend.

The PPI report is the Producer Price Index which measures inflation on the wholesale level. It came in well under the market expectations, so the market was anticipating the Consumer Price Index (which measures inflation on a consumer level and was being released the next day) to do the same. CPI came in at the initial market expectations instead of the new hyped up expectations, so rates basically treaded water on Wednesday. THEN the retail sales report dropped on Thursday showing consumer spending was up which helped tame fears of a recession. The stock market had a field day and rates spiked a bit as a result.

Next week is a big week with a whole lot of FED. The minutes from their last meeting will be released and they are also hosting their Jackson Hole Symposium! The symposium is an annual 3 day event hosted by the Kansas City Fed where central bankers from around world meet to discuss monetary policy. The Theme for this year's event is "Reassessing the Effectiveness and Transmission of Monetary Policy" and it is expected to highlight the strength of the US economy despite higher interest rates and its defiance of entering a recessions amidst numerous recession indicators. So a bunch of rich old guys are meeting up to talk about what a great job they are doing. This is mainly interesting because it gives us a lot of face time with Fed members who will likely say things which will soundbite and move the market.