Who Lied About Jobs Numbers?
Who Lied About Jobs Numbers? Unpleasant day for the bond market with jobs crushing forecasts and being revised higher for the past 2 months. We knew it would be high stakes and the magnitude of the reaction makes good sense relative to the data. But how do we reconcile this against the weaker jobs numbers in the past 2 months? And what ab...
Massive Jump in Mortgage Rates After Jobs Report
Today's much-anticipated jobs report ended up coming out much stronger than expected. A stronger result was all but guaranteed to cause carnage (relative) in the mortgage market and that's definitely what we're seeing. A caveat is that rates are still much lower than they were several months ago, but the average lender is now back in line with mid August levels. Additionally, thi...
Digital Assistance, AI Tools; Events and Webinars Through October; Strong Employment News
As Maui grapples with rebuilding, and parts of the Southeast deal with continued rescue or recovery issues, where would our lives be without some levity? Rich Swerbinsky, Founder of Onward and Upward Consulting, has updated his “40 Greatest Names in the Mortgage Industry list.” (Contributions or comments should be addressed to him, not me.) Speaking of names, “Springfield” has certainly be...
Huge Beat in Jobs Report; Bonds Reeling
It is a very simple day for the bond market. There was a ton of anticipation for today's jobs report after the past two iterations raised concerns about flagging labor market conditions. Indeed, the Fed's decision to cut by 0.50 vs 0.25 last month had much to do with the fear/expectation that reports like today's would be in shorter supply going forward. In other words, a 0.25% c...
ISM Makes For Negative NFP Lead-Off
ISM Makes For Negative NFP Lead-Off If the bond market has to digest an ISM Services report that is much stronger than expected, it would be best not to have it come out less than 24 hours before the big jobs report. Otherwise, you get a day like today where the data fueled a pre-NFP (nonfarm payrolls--the headline component of Friday's jobs report) ...
Consistently Higher Rates Since Fed Rate Cut, But Friday Could be BIG
Depending on how tuned in you've been to changes in our daily rate tracking, the news may be getting old at this point. Rates have done almost nothing but move higher ever since the Fed cut rates on September 18th. While this continues to be a challenge for some folks to comprehend, it was always a risk, which is why we spent several weeks warning about the possibility leading up to Fed Day....
Reg. X, POS, Soft-Pull, VOE Products; Conventional Conforming Changes; Housing Supply Hits
Tis the time of year when pumpkins have magically appeared in bins outside supermarkets and on porches. Which state grows the most? It’s hard to beat Illinois with its 18,000 acres of pumpkins. 2,100 miles away, in California (with roughly 900,000 acres of grapes), what happens when a family with a vineyard tries to do a tiny bit to help the housing/shelter market? In California, it isn’t pret...
The Consolidation Game is Over
There are some labor market reports that cause some concern about a weaker job market. And while Jobless Claims is often thought to be a leading indicator, it is not one of those reports. Today's release is the latest example. The 225k headline is a bit higher than the forecast of 220k, but still right in line with trends from the 3 most recent, "normal" years. A...
Wednesday's Market Movement Raises Stakes for Friday
Wednesday's Market Movement Raises Stakes for Friday There are times when the bond market seems not to care too terribly much what the ADP Employment report is saying. There are other times when ADP has a surprisingly big impact. Relative to the size of today's beat, we arguably saw one of the surprisingly big reactions today. It's not th...
Mortgage Rates Near 1-Month Highs, But That's Still Pretty Great
Mortgage rates moved higher today after an employment report suggested that Friday's forthcoming Employment Situation (the BIG jobs report) might come in slightly better than expected. The report in question, ADP Employment, is always released 2 days before the big jobs report and it's designed to align with the key headline of that report: nonfarm payrolls. ADP's payroll count ...