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You can count on it: When the Federal Reserve changes its interest rate, news headlines about mortgage rates will follow.

This cycle unfolds up to eight times a year, so many home shoppers get the idea that the Fed regulates mortgage rates.

Fed decisions affect mortgage rates, but the Fed doesn’t control mortgage rates directly. In fact, as Better discusses here, the Fed’s actions can have unpredictable effects on the rates new home buyers pay on their mortgage loans.

Does the Fed set mortgage interest rates?

The Federal Reserve is the most powerful financial institution in the U.S., and its decisions reverberate throughout the global economy, including the mortgage market.

When the Fed adjusts rates, it’s changing the Federal Funds Rate, which is the overnight interest rate banks charge each other when they lend reserve funds to manage their cash flow. This rate influences short-term borrowing costs throughout the economy, including rates on credit cards, auto loans, and home equity lines of credit (HELOCs).

But 30-year fixed mortgage rates are long-term rates. They’re shaped mostly by broader financial markets, not by the Fed’s policy committee.

What actually drives 30-year mortgage rates

Mortgage rates are closely tied to:

• U.S. Treasury yields, especially the 10-year Treasury.
• The price of mortgage-backed securities (MBS).
• Inflation and jobs data.
• Predictions about future economic growth.
• Demand for U.S. bonds globally.
• Risk premiums required by investors.

All this affects mortgage rates because a single home loan doesn’t exist in an economic vacuum. After a borrower closes a mortgage loan to buy a primary residence, the lender will often sell this loan into the secondary market.

Multiple mortgage loans get combined into mortgage-backed securities, a financial asset investors can buy and sell. Investors who buy mortgage-backed securities expect returns that compensate them for inflation risk, interest-rate risk, and the chance borrowers refinance earlier than expected.

Because of this expectation, mortgage rates come with future risks and payoffs already built into their pricing. The rate you pay on a home loan this month reflects what investors believe will happen to inflation, economic growth, and Fed policy over the next few years.

How do mortgage rates react when the Fed lowers its rate?

When the Fed cuts the Federal Funds Rate, as it did three times between September and December, many borrowers expect mortgage rates to fall immediately. Sometimes rates do fall, but not always.

One reason for this: The mortgage markets have

By Chris Isidore, CNN

(CNN) — For years, a huge Amazon contract has been one of the few bright spots in the US Postal Service’s finances. But now the USPS plans to offer those last-mile services to additional customers to stem billions in ongoing losses – a move that risks losing its biggest customer.

The USPS faces a tight squeeze. With fewer people using the mail, it’s lost more and more money: $9 billion in the 12 months ending in September alone.

“We certainly have a precarious cash position. You know, within probably 12 to 24 months, we are out of cash,” USPS Commissioner David Steiner said in a recent interview with Reuters. Simply making additional cost cutting measures won’t solve the problem, he said.

The Amazon contract reportedly brings in about $6 billion a year to the agency, money it can’t afford to lose.

But the post office now plans to accept bids from other shippers for access to the service’s distribution centers – even though Amazon says that might prompt it to pull back from the using the USPS so much.

“We’ve been working for nearly a year to extend our partnership that started more than 30 years ago,” said Amazon spokesman Steve Kelly.

“We were surprised to hear they want to run an auction after nearly a year of negotiations, and, given the change of direction and the uncertainty it adds to our delivery network, we’re evaluating all of our options that would ensure we can continue to deliver for our customers.”

Universal service

The very thing that makes the postal service so attractive to Amazon is also the reason why the agency so badly needs more money: universal service.

The postal service is legally required to deliver mail all across the United States all at the same price, what’s called universal delivery. That includes rural, far-flung or hard-to-reach destinations, expensive places for mail carriers to get to.

For Amazon, that means it’s sometimes cheaper to use USPS for that last stretch of delivery to a customer’s door.

But while that contract is important to USPS, it’s not nearly enough.

“We may not have sufficient liquidity to meet all of our existing legal obligations when due while also repaying our maturing debt and making the critical infrastructure investments… without putting our ability to fulfill that primary mission at undue risk,” it said in its most recent annual report.

Trying to get more customers to deliver pre-sorted packages in bulk directly into the USPS system makes operational sense, said Elena Patel, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institute and an expert in Postal Service finances. But she said there is a risk if those negotiations with smaller shippers pushes Amazon to no longer use the USPS as much as it has in the past.

“I don’t know what the state of negotiations is, but it certainly would not be good for the financial situation at the Postal Service for the negotiations with Amazon to fall apart,” she said.

USPS has already started to see package volumes start to slip after years of growth fueled by online consumer purchases. Total parcel and package volume slipped nearly 6% in the most recent fiscal year. But packages are still up nearly 500% from where they were 20 years ago, while first-class letter volume has plunged in the same period.

Patel said that it’s in the national interest for the government to continue to provide universal service, even if it means between $6 billion to $10 billion in annual congressional appropriations to USPS.

“The premise of (the USPS) is that it would deliver everywhere at an affordable rate, and we will let you keep the letter monopoly to pay for that,” she said. “Well, the second half of that is

Análisis por Brett H. McGurk, CNN

Hace un año esta semana, Joe Biden era presidente. Yo estaba en Doha, Qatar, negociando con Israel y Hamas para finalizar un acuerdo de alto el fuego y liberación de rehenes.

El equipo entrante de Trump colaboró ​​estrechamente con nosotros, una inusual muestra de imparcialidad para liberar rehenes y poner fin a una guerra. Parece que fue hace una década. Mucho puede pasar en un año, como lo ha demostrado 2025.

Hoy, Estados Unidos cuenta con la mayor concentración militar en el Caribe desde la crisis de los misiles de Cuba.

Enviados rusos participan en encuentros en Miami para discutir una nueva propuesta de alto el fuego para Ucrania, mientras el presidente Vladimir Putin continúa intensificando la guerra contra el país europeo.

Estados Unidos designó a un general de tres estrellas en Israel para supervisar un alto el fuego en Gaza tras bombardear Irán durante el verano.

El presidente Donald Trump planea una cumbre en Beijing que podría determinar el destino de Taiwán, así como nuestra competencia con China en los campos de las tecnologías avanzadas y la inteligencia artificial.

Este año que ha pasado se sintió más transformacional que transicional, y 2026 se perfila como un año decisivo, con múltiples puntos de inflexión en la agenda global.

Vamos a desglosarlo, con siete cuestiones que seguiré de cerca:

La administración Trump ha desplegado la mayor armada en el Caribe y el Atlántico occidental desde el apogeo de la Guerra Fría.

Esta fuerza incluye un grupo de ataque de portaviones, múltiples destructores, fuerzas de asalto anfibio, bombarderos furtivos y unidades de operaciones especiales.

El objetivo aún no está claro, pero las fuerzas estadounidenses está llevando a cabo una campaña letal contra presuntos narcotraficantes, con casi 30 ataques sin autorización del Congreso ni debate público.

Durante la última semana, Trump aumentó la tensión con un bloqueo militar declarado contra los cargamentos ilícitos de petróleo y la incautación de más tanqueros.

Esto parece una política de cambio de régimen con el respaldo de la fuerza militar. La Casa Blanca parece esperar que el líder de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, deje el poder voluntariamente para vivir el resto de sus días en Rusia o en otro lugar. Según informes, Trump hizo esa demanda directamente.

Pero es poco probable que eso suceda. Hay pocos ejemplos de presiones económicas y amenazas externas que, por sí solas, obliguen a un líder como Maduro a ceder el poder. (La destitución del líder militar haitiano Raoul Cedras en 1994 es un ejemplo, pero en ese caso, las fuerzas estadounidenses ya estaba en el aire listo para invadir el país antes de que sucumbiera).

Trump ahora afirma que Estados Unidos será la potencia predominante en el hemisferio occidental, dispuesta a usar la fuerza cuando sea necesario para promover los intereses estadounidenses.

La administración califica su nueva política como un “Corolario Trump” de la Doctrina Monroe, que advertía a las potencias coloniales europeas que se mantuvieran alejadas de nuestro territorio.

Sin embargo, en la época de Monroe, Estados Unidos no contaba con una armada. Ahora, una parte significativa de la fuerza naval más poderosa del planeta está desplegada frente a Venezuela.

¿Qué significa todo esto? El destino de Maduro en 2026 podría responder a esa pregunta. Si se mantiene en el poder, Trump corre el riesgo de ser visto como alguien que ladra y no muerde. Si se va, pocos podrían dudar de la seriedad de Trump como hegemón hemisférico.

En mi opinión, nada de esto parece bien pensado, pero la suerte está echada y cómo se resuelva durante el próximo año dirá mucho sobre qué esperar del “Corolario Trump” durante el resto de su segundo mandato.

En febrero, la invasión rusa de Ucrania entrará en su quinto año. La intenc

By Svitlana Vlasova and Caitlin Danaher, CNN

(CNN) — Two police officers and a third person were killed early Wednesday by a bomb in Moscow, close to the scene of a car bombing that killed a top Russian general two days ago.

The two police officers approached a suspicious person who detonated an explosive device near a police car, Russia’s investigative committee said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Investigators and forensic experts from the Moscow Investigative Committee are continuing to examine the scene of the incident,” Svetlana Petrenko, a representative for the investigative committee, said in the statement.

Police are also studying CCTV and interviewing witnesses in an attempt to uncover the perpetrator, the statement added.

The deadly blast comes just days after a Russian general was killed by a car bomb on a neighboring street in the Russian capital.

Lt. Gen Fanil Sarvarov, who ran the armed forces operational training department, died after an explosive device installed under the chassis of a car exploded on Monday morning, investigators said.

Russian officials suggested Ukraine could have behind the apparent assassination of the senior military officer. “Investigators are pursuing various motives for the murder. One of the theories is that the crime was organized by Ukrainian special services,” the investigative committee said Monday.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack on Sarvarov, but several prominent Russians have been killed in Moscow in attacks blamed on the Ukrainian security services since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The investigative committee did not comment on whether the two incidents are linked.

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