Eager investors and property owners tired of refinancing rates were happy to hear of the Federal Reserve's rate cut in September. But what would come next? When might they get more? From what Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech on Monday at the National Association for Business Economics Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, restraint of hopes might be a good decision.

CME Group's FedWatch and its monitoring of the 30-day fed funds futures price market suggests a 50% chance after the Federal Open Market Group's December meeting, the federal funds rate down to 400 to 425 basis points. Such a drop would mean a total of 150 basis points cut from where things stood before September.

Granted, the Fed did make the first cut since 2020 and at a 50-basis-point level — not the three-quarter point jumps from the interest scale up to fight inflation, but still significant. However, the wisdom of crowds goes oft astray, to torment the memory of Robert Burns. Similar market predictions assumed that rate cuts were supposed to start in March, then April, then June, then July.