Speaking in a Bloomberg Television interview, noted hawk Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Chuck Plosser said the Fed may have to hike rates even as housing prices continue to fall.

Plosser commented that the economy has not changed much in the last few months and that rising prices pose the biggest challenge to the economy. Plosser noted that...

Economic conditions across the U.S. "slowed somewhat," according to the Fed's Beige Book on Wednesday. Five of the 12 districts were said to have weakened since the last report six weeks ago, while Chicago's economy was "sluggish" and growth in Kansas City had moderated. The remaining three districts saw slight increases in activity.

Residential real estate markets "remained sluggish in a majority of districts," the report said, with residential real estate lending and consumer lending showing more weakness than commercial lending.

Although he is not pleased with some parts of the housing bill, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said it was easy for him to recommend to President George W. Bush to sign a housing rescue package into law on Wednesday.

Rates for both short- and long-term mortgages tumbled last week according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released the results of its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ended July 18 on Wednesday. Mortgage activity as measured by the volume of loan applications...

Economists largely agree that the Beige Book document to be released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve won't receive extended attention from markets, which are more concerned with forward-looking data. The report will likely say that economic conditions are soft across the country, with a few pockets of exceptional weakness and moderate growth.

Weekly mortgage applications in the United States declined in the week ending July 18, according to data released from the Mortgage Bankers' Association (MBA) on Wednesday, which reported a 6.2% week-over-week fall in applications.

Canadian CPI tops the economic news of the day as markets receive the Fed's Beige Book and the Department of Energy's weekly oil inventories. In the afternoon, markets will also be paying attention o the sales of $31 billion in two-year Treasury notes.

In the U.S., the Mortgage Bankers Association will release mortgage applications for the week ending July 18 at 7 a.m. EDT. In the previous week, applications rose 1.7%.

The Federal Reserve Board Discount rate meeting minutes from May 19 and June 23 show that ten out of twelve reserve banks voted to leave the discount rate unchanged. The Dallas Fed and the Kansas Fed requested to have the discount rate increase by 0.25%.

U.S. house prices fell 0.3% month-over-month in May following April's 0.8% pullback, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reported Tuesday.

The consensus had been looking for a 0.8% month-over-month pullback in May.

"It is very hard to draw conclusions from a one-month number, especially in these uncertain times; but the numbers in the Pacific, East and West North Central Divisions may be good signs..."

Less than a week after Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox invoked the Commission's emergency powers to regulate short selling of certain stocks including Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, complaints were surfacing from financial institutions. The complaints were not because those financial institutions were on the list of troubled banks in need of shoring up, but because they were not.

The American Bankers Association which represents the interest of 8,500 banks said, in a letter to the SEC, that it fears that short sellers will now concentrate their efforts on banks that are not covered by the emergency order and asked that...