As we forecasted in the last two issues of The Weekly Commentary, the FED’s Chairman, Ben Bernanke, calmed the bond market using wording in his speeches recently that pressured and influenced the bond market to drop interest rates.  We suspect this tactic will continue with the end result that interest rates on mortgages, bonds with a maturity of 5 or more years, and intermediate/long term bond funds will decline for the next 2 to 4 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 2  – 4 weeks or longer, but rise over the next 5 to 10 years.