The Fed’s minutes imply that the central bank isn’t yet about to start tapering, or decelerating its purchases of financial assets on the open market. Buying bonds and other assets has been part of the bank’s toolkit for supporting the economy amid a global pandemic.
“The prospect of the Federal Reserve dialing back their pace of bond purchases would seem to conclude that mortgage rates have only one direction to go–up,” said Greg McBride, Bankrate’s chief financial analyst. “But there are a number of variables at play, particularly around the timing and magnitude of the tapering.”