| The Federal Reserve might have just done something extremely rare for a major central bank. It may have engineered a soft landing. With a hefty half-point rate cut; the Fed embarked on a monetary easing cycle - it began lowering its target rate after more than two years of tight monetary policy - without encountering an immediate economic downturn. That's happened only twice over the past 35 years, in 1995 and 1998. Of course, it's possible the economy will fall into recession in the next few months, but right now all the data coming in says that's unlikely. And the stock and bond markets agree. The S&P 500 hit an all-time high the day after the Fed cut. Bond yields also rose, signaling a shift out of bonds and into riskier assets like stocks. That's an extremely bullish signal. Best of all, mortgage ratees fell to nearly 6% in the wake of the Fed's action, down from 6.2% recently, and a peak of 7.8% last October. Such a drop in the cost of borrowing to buy a home should create a wave of new demand, as affordability - a combination of housing prices and borrowing prices - starts to improve. And if futures traders are right, there are several more rate cuts in the pipeline. | 
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