Federal Reserve interest rate cut already affecting some prices

It's been nearly a week since the Federal Reserve announced it would be cutting interest rates by half a percentage point, and it's already having an impact. Mortgage rates have fallen to roughly 6.1 percent following the cut, and while the credit card interest rate stood at almost 25 percent, some cards are lowering their APR. CBS News Money Watch Associate Managing Editor Amy Peaky is with us now. Amy, what impact are these rate cuts, is this one rate cut, having on the U.S. economy? Yeah, hi, Lindsay. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty interesting that almost immediately after this rate cut, we are seeing some of an impact. For instance, mortgage rates, which had already started to come down, ended last week at 6.09 percent. That's the lowest rate for a 30-year mortgage since February 2023. And credit card offers in American Express and U.S. Bank have also cut their APRs by half a percentage point, the same amount as the Fed's cut in the days after the rate cut. Experts I spoke to said they expect more rate cuts in the weeks to come, such as home equity lines of credit. They'll probably come down as well. So this is going to trickle through into different borrowing products. That credit card rate still looks high, though. What does this mean for the average American? Right now, it is a positive for borrowers, but let's also put it into perspective. The federal funds rate was at its highest point ahead of this cut. So even a jumbo cut like this will have a small, relatively small financial impact, given that rates had been so high. You know, really, the bigger benefits are going to come throughout the next year because the Fed is expected to continue to cut rates later in 2024 and into 2025. Oh, really? OK, so any indication of what month, what meeting that will take place, where they will cut again? Yeah, so the Fed's next meetings are November and December. There are expecting another half a percentage point cut by the end of the year. So it could be split between those two meetings or one jumbo cut at one meeting. But then the Fed itself projects additional cuts in 2025, and they're projecting that their rate will be two percentage points lower by the end of 2025. And at that point, that makes a big difference for borrowers. I know last week we were talking about one of the downsides. Essentially, if you're in one of those high yield savings accounts, your interest rate is actually going to go down. Any other downsides right now to the rate cut? Yeah, I mean, it's really for savers. I mean, we're already seeing that high yield savings accounts and CDs, their rates are coming down. But the good news is right now you can actually still get pretty good rates. For instance, high yield savings accounts are offering about four point seven five percent before the cut or earlier this year was about five percent. So you can see they've come down a little bit, but that's still historically is actually a pretty good rate. So it's good for now. Much better than when I started my account. Thank you, Amy Peakey.