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

This week kicked off earning season for US public companies. On Tuesday after the market closed companies started reporting their Q4 earnings. Reporting was mixed with some companies beating estimates and some falling short.

Congress is out until next week so this week was mainly quiet. When they return next week they will start the debate on debt ceiling which needs to be resolved by early March in order to keep the Government form running out of money. Once again the two parties are far off on how to resolve the problem and will cause market volatility until resolved.

Today we saw a small spike in rates which was caused by some of the Federal Reserve (FED) members speaking their mind on quantitative easing (QE). Some FED members issued concerns that continued QE will causes issues down the road. The FED is not going to stop QE anytime soon but any talk about stopping it tends to spook investors.