At the time I am writing this mortgage interest rates are a little less than 1/8th of a percent higher than they were last Friday.

Once again this week was dominated by news about the Fiscal Cliff. Despite 3 meetings at the white house between Obama and Republican leader Boehner politicians still can't come to an agreement about how to avoid the approaching Fiscal Cliff. As long as there is uncertainty the market will remain volatile. My guess is still that they will wait to the last minute then come to a short term agreement, basically extending the problem until the new Congress starts.

On Wednesday the Federal Reserve(FED) President Ben Bernanke held a press conference after concluding the FED's monthly meeting. At the press conference he confirmed that the FED will continue to buy long term debt to keep interest rates low until the unemployment rate falls to 6.5%. This is considered good news for interest rates, but it did not have much of an effect on rates as this was highly anticipated by traders and thus already priced into the market.