Fannie Mae posts 2Q profits

average of 3.65 percent. The benchmark rate stood at 3.43 percent a year ago.

The rate on 15-year, fixed-rate home loans, popular with homeowners who are refinancing mortgages, slipped to 3.18 percent, from 3.20 percent last week.

Mortgage rates haven’t risen substantially despite the Federal Reserve having increased its key interest rate four times in the past 18 months. The Fed said last week that it’s keeping the rate unchanged at a time when inflation remains undesirably low despite the job market continuing to strengthen.

Growth slow for services firms

survey committee, said the July reading is consistent with overall U.S. economic growth of 1.9 percent a year, a mediocre pace and about what the economy has averaged so far this year. Growth picked up to a 2.6 percent annual pace from April through June after getting off to a slow 1.2 percent start the first three months of 2017.

Fannie Mae reported net income of $3.2 billion from April through June, up from a year earlier, as the mortgage giant marked gains on its investments.

The government-controlled company released its second-quarter results Thursday. Washington-based Fannie Mae will pay a dividend of $3.1 billion to the U.S. Treasury next month if the company’s federal regulator agrees. That payment would bring the total dividends paid by Fannie to $165.8 billion.

Fannie received $116 billion from taxpayers when the financial crisis struck in September 2008. The government rescued Fannie and smaller sibling Freddie Mac after they suffered huge losses from risky mortgages in the housing market bust. Together the companies received rescue loans totaling about $187 billion. The housing market’s gradual recovery has made Fannie and Freddie profitable again. — Wire services