Chicago's Mortgage Choice - September 19, 2017 Real Estate Report - Significant News for the Fed

Meetings of the Federal Reserve Board are very news worthy for the markets by themselves. On the other hand, thinking about how much news and data the Fed has to consider before they make a decision regarding interest rates and other activities is almost mind boggling. It is not as if they look at the jobs data and make a decision based upon that report. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of points of data to consider. Add the current events happening today, and one would not want to be in that decision-making position. Between Korean nuclear tests, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, legislative and administrative actions, and more; there is no lack of information which might influence the Fed. In other words, the economic data is very complex, but adding all these other factors make the decision-making environment totally convoluted. Before the current events intervened, the betting line was that the Fed would announce tomorrow that they will start paring down their assets -- most likely starting in October. They were expected to hold open the possibility of raising rates again before the end of the year, but were not likely to act at this meeting. We believe that the current events make it even less likely that the Fed will raise rates at today's meeting and the decision to start paring down in October may still stand, but even this expected move could be delayed. Keith Stewart 773-529-7000