As we forecasted in the last three issues of The Weekly Commentary, the FED’s Chairman, Ben Bernanke, calmed the bond market using wording in his Congressional testimony that pressured the bond market to reduce interest rates.  We suspect this tactic will continue with the end result of interest rates on mortgages, bonds with a maturity of 5 or more years, and intermediate/long term bond funds will decline for the next 1 to 3 weeks. This tactic which I call “jawboning” can work for only a limited time period until economic reality sets in again at which time interest rates could move higher.  Our interest rate forecast is for interest rates on the above mentioned securities will generally decline for 1 to 3 weeks or longer, but rise over the next 5 to 10 years.