Mortgage rates were higher to end the day, but not as high as they might have been without the Fed Statement.  The day began with a series of strong economic reports.  The ADP Employment Report was much stronger than expected, as was the employment component of the ISM Manufacturing report.  Investors connect those dots to increased risk of a strong number in this Friday's all-important Employment Situation Report (the big jobs report).  

But jobs are good, right?  So why is this bad?  

It's not bad for the economy.  It's merely bad for rates.  In general, stronger economic data (especially when it's the jobs report) tends to push rates higher.  Bottom line: this morning's data made traders think Friday's big jobs report might be even stronger, so they traded bond markets toward higher rates preemptively.

The Fed helped push rates back in the other direction this afternoon.  While there were numerous minor changes in their verbiage, none of them did anything to accelerate the rate hike timeline or to threaten the Fed's current policy of reinvesting the interest it earns on its portfolio.  That's one of the key reasons that rates are still historically low. With that, multiple lenders were able to improve rate sheets this afternoon.  The net effect was still a slight move higher for closing costs, but the damage would have been much worse without the Fed.