Plan ahead, because interest rates may go up at any time - 2004-02-01
When will interest rates go up? The Federal Reserve Board has maintained the federal funds target rate at 1 percent early into 2004, though Chairman Alan Greenspan and company may decide to tighten credit sometime later this year.

Meanwhile, bond and mortgage rates generally have been heading higher since last summer.
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Australian Building Approvals Probably Dropped 1.8%: BN Survey - 2004-02-01
Australian building approvals probably dropped in December after the central bank hiked interest rates for a second month in a row.

``The housing market is slowing and that really started to occur before the Reserve Bank lifted rates,'' Michael Blythe, chief economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation's largest mortgage lender, said in Sydney. ``The rates increases gave that slowdown an extra kick along.''
Read the full story at Bloomberg