Stock investors

A drop in mortgage rates would be welcome for buyers as they head into the spring home buying season.

The average rate on a 30year fixed mortgage has been trending down since November, falling with Treasury yields.

It was at 4.28 percent this week, down from 4.94 percent a little before Thanksgiving.

Wednesday’s tumble for Treasury yields indicates mortgage rates have room to fall further.

Such an easing would be welcome help for the housing market, which struggled last year as potential buyers got priced out by rising mortgage rates. It also could mean opportunities for people who own homes and are looking to refinance.

Lower interest rates can encourage borrowing and more economic growth, and stock investors are nervously scrounging for the latter given a slowing global economy.

Lower rates also can make stocks more attractive as investments because they make the competition look worse: A Treasury bought today will pay less in interest than one bought before. Stocks that pay high dividends can get a particularly big boost from low rates because their payouts look more lucrative.

Of course, lower rates are not a panacea. They hurt savers and retirees who had just started to enjoy higher rates on their money-market accounts and bonds after years of earning very little.

Low rates also raise the risk of inflating prices for investments into bubbles, such as those that ultimately led to the crashes of tech bubble in 2000 and the housing bubble in 2008.

“We’re in a very different world today,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell told reporters at a news conference, stressing that the Fed is now carefully monitoring financial conditions and stability in ways that it didn’t previously.