The Federal Reserve cut the target for the federal funds rate by a quarter-point this week, and you can be sure of what that means for mortgage rates: They will climb. Or they will drop. Or they will stay about the same.

In other words, there isn’t a straight connection between what the Fed does and what fixed-rate mortgages do. Sometimes they move in the same direction and sometimes they move in opposite directions. Often, it depends on your time frame.

Some potential borrowers float their rate in advance of a Fed rate cut, expecting long-term, fixed mortgage rates to fall a quarter-point immediately after the Fed cuts a quarter-point. “They do not understand that it does not work that way,” says Kevin Weaver, a broker with Kash Mortgage in Lexington, Ky.

Weaver points out that the Fed cut the federal funds rate by a half-point Sept. 18 and a quarter-point on Halloween, and on both occasions long-term bond yields immediately jumped higher. Some mortgage lenders raised rates immediately, too.

After the Sept. 18 Fed rate cut, mortgage rates remained higher for a month before settling back down to where they had been before the central bank’s action. When the federal funds rate was cut Oct. 31, long-term bond yields spiked higher, then fell back the next morning.