COMMERCIAL FINANCE INTEREST RATE UPDATE | August 2021
The U.S. Labor Department announced yesterday that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased .5% last month after climbing .9% in June. This was the largest month-over-month drop in inflation in 15 months, easing concerns about the potential for runaway inflation. According to a recent article in Yahoo Finance, written by Chuck Mikolajczak, “Investors have been closely attuned to inflation pressures in recent months, concerned that a continual rise in prices could push the Federal Reserve to begin to scale down its ultra-accommodative policy stance earlier than anticipated.” This recent drop in the monthly CPI number somewhat eases the concern.
The benchmark 10-year treasury closed today at 1.37%. Interestingly, it traded at a similar 1.36% 30 days ago and at .64% one year ago during the peak of the COVID pandemic. The chart below shows there has been substantial movement in the benchmark rate, borrowing rates have not been as volatile.
The current market for fixed-rate loans looks like the following:
- 3-year fixed-rate loans from 2.25-3.50%
- 5-year fixed-rate loans from 2.50-3.75%
- 10-year fixed-rate loans from 2.50-4.00%
- 15-year fixed-rate loans from 2.75-4.50%
- 20-year fixed-rate loans from 3.00-4.75%