Wednesday: Fed Chair Powell Testimony

Mortgage RatesFrom Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Slightly Higher to Start The Week

Mortgage rates surged well into the 6% range last week before quickly cooling down after Wednesday’s Fed announcement. The average top tier rate was nearly back below 6% by Friday. [30 year fixed 6.07%]
emphasis added

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

• At 9:30 AM, Testimony, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress, Before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, U.S. Senate

During the day, The AIA’s Architecture Billings Index for May (a leading indicator for commercial real estate).

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths):

COVID Metrics
  Now Week
Ago
Goal
Percent fully Vaccinated 66.8% ≥70.0%1
Fully Vaccinated (millions) 221.9 ≥2321
New Cases per Day3 89,102 106,368 ≤5,0002
Hospitalized3 23,992 24,066 ≤3,0002
Deaths per Day3 239 307 ≤502
1 Minimum to achieve “herd immunity” (estimated between 70% and 85%).
2my goals to stop daily posts,
37-day average for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths
🚩 Increasing 7-day average week-over-week for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths
✅ Goal met.


COVID-19 Positive Tests per DayClick on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the daily (columns) and 7-day average (line) of deaths reported.

Average daily deaths bottomed in July 2021 at 214 per day.