The meeting of the Federal Reserve board today ended with the expected results. The Fed has decided to leave interest rates unchanged for the time being. The last time rates were chagned by the Fed was in mid-2006 which ended a long run of rate hikes aimed at curbing inflation.

While they did leave rates unchanged, their outlook for the future did not mention any rate decreases, something that many investors were hoping to hear. At this point, their outlook appears to be steady with a slight chance of a rate increase if inflation doesn't slow as much as predicted. However, there are people that feel rates will lower near the end of 2007 to help with a slowing economy.

Unfortunately, the lack of expectations for lowering rates caused some havok on the stock market again. Some times I just can't fathom how fickle investors are. Do they really think they need to dump their stocks right away because of an unchanged outlook? An article I read recently pointed out that the people that really do well in the stock market are not the people that make these kinds of trades. Those people that get wealthy from stocks HOLD their stocks for extended periods of time usually only making a couple trades a year. If they have invested in a reasonably sound company, they are likely to weather the market fluctuations just fine.

Bottom line is interest rates don't appear to be changing much for the rest of the year, so don't hold off (or rush) on getting that mortgage.