reasons why investors might think this way. one is that accumulated excess savings resulting from a lack of spending opportunities are large enough to meaningfully affect the trajectory of the economy in the medium term ( left chart, slide 10 ). it is difficult to predict what portion of these savings will end up being spent. it is also unclear how firms will adjust their profit margins to make up for lost income and higher leverage. before the pandemic, profit margins were a key contributor to weak inflation by absorbing cost - push pressures. but the pass - through of higher input prices – for example for oil and copper – to final consumer prices may change in an environment of weaker balance sheets, supply bottlenecks and large pent - up demand ( right chart, slide 10 ). yet, rising nominal rates have not been accompanied by a rise in real rates. real ten - year yields fluctuated over the period but have returned to their december levels, thereby protecting the prevailing high degree of accommodation. real rates up to a maturity of five years have even continued to reach new historical lows in recent weeks ( left chart, slide 11 ). 5 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches the stability of real interest rates is likely to have reflected a combination of two factors. first, the pepp ’ s calendar - based forward guidance, promising net asset purchases until at least march 2022, has allayed fears of early tapering in the euro area, keeping the real term premium anchored at very low levels, supported by our continued net asset purchases. second, the near - term growth outlook for the euro area remains highly uncertain and clouded. large parts of the euro area economy remain paralysed. vaccination campaigns are progressing slowly, infection numbers are rising and containment measures are stricter than in other parts of the world. this interpretation is consistent with the picture painted by the latest ecb staff macroeconomic projections, which foresee an economic and inflation outlook that is largely unchanged from the december 2020 projections. while the risks surrounding the growth outlook over the medium term have become more balanced, downside risks remain in the near term, mainly owing to the rapid spread of virus mutations. in the light of these risks, the speed of adjustment of nominal yields was considered to pose a threat to the recovery. there was a risk that markets were getting ahead of themselves. movements in financial markets had become disorderly at times, increasing volatility and thus uncertainty. the risk of an overly abrupt and premature withdrawal of vital

in this way encourage more of this type of lending. the data also suggest that these types of transactions have not been a significant factor in the current crisis. specifically, less than 2 percent of the higher - priced and cra - credit - eligible mortgage originations sold by independent mortgage companies were purchased by cra - covered institutions. i now want to turn to the second question concerning how cra - related subprime lending performed relative to other types of lending. to address this issue, we looked at data on subprime and alt - a mortgage delinquencies in lower - income neighborhoods and compared them with those in middle - and higher - income neighborhoods to see how cra - related loans performed. 7 an overall comparison revealed that the rates for all subprime and alt - a loans delinquent 90 days or more is high regardless of neighborhood income. 8 this result casts loan origination data are from information reported pursuant to the home mortgage disclosure act ( hmda ). the hmda data do not identify subprime loans directly, in part because there is not a single definition of which loans fall into this category. rather, the hmda data indicate which loans are categorized as higher priced, including subprime loans and some alt - a loans. the analysis of data includes first - lien conventional loans for home purchase or refinance related to site - built homes. it excludes business - related loans to the extent they could be identified. for more information on hmda data and higher - priced lending, see robert b. avery, kenneth p. brevoort, and glenn b. canner ( 2007 ), " the 2006 hmda data, " federal reserve bulletin, vol. 93. about 17 percent of the higher - priced loan originations were made by cra - covered lenders or their affiliates to lower - income populations in areas outside the banking institutions'local communities. such lending is not the focus of the cra and is frequently not considered in cra performance evaluations. data are from first american loan performance ( lp ). for the analysis, zip code delinquency data were classified by relative income in two different ways. first, the data were classified using information published by the u. s. census bureau on income at the zip code tabulation area ( zcta ) level of geography. because the zcta data provide an income estimate for each zip code, delinquency rates can be calculated directly from the