The Federal Open Market Committee's last meeting of the year begins Tuesday, and will conclude at 12:30 PM ET Wednesday. Be careful, as mortgage rates are susceptible to extreme volatility in terms of the direction the minutes lay out. The primary driver is the conclusion of "Operation Twist" that started last September, and what the FED will do moving forward. Will they let the program expire without replacing the roughly $45B in monthly stimulus? - which potentially could be rate negative, and signal they feel there has been traction in the economic recovery. Or, will they announce/intimate outright Treasury bond purchases as a replacement - which potentially could be mortgage rate positive. Keep a close eye on the market Wednesday, as the reaction could be dramatic one way or the other.

It would be smart to lock a floating interest rates prior to that if you don't want to get caught in the storm...