Whoa. Maybe we got a bit ahead of ourselves on those rising interest-rate forecasts.
If there was one economic prediction last year that seemed like a slam dunk, it was that interest rates would start climbing, perhaps relentlessly. Many types of rates, such as those on Treasury bills, have fallen so close to zero that they couldn’t go much lower. With the economy perking up and the Federal Reserve intending to scale back on its stimulus efforts, it seemed that higher rates were all but inevitable.
For a while last year, that scenario did unfold. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, for example, jumped from about 3.35 percent at the end of 2012 to 4.5 percent by September 2013.
Read more...Rethinking forecasts on interest rate hikes
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