Friday's Big Job Report Revision Moves Rates Down

258,000 jobs were removed from previous reports

Happy Friday from Local Mortgage!

Mortgage rates finally started to move off center this week and they moved in a favorable direction. We moved down to 6.25% for our best 30-year fixed conventional scenario.

It was a jam-packed busy week for economic data. The move down in rates started Tuesday with friendly labor market data and a strong 7-year Treasury auction. Wednesday’s stronger than expected GDP report tried to push rates back up just a bit, but Friday’s weaker than expected employment report was the headline of the week. The economy added 73,000 jobs in July, much less than the forecasted 100,000. But the biggest shock of the report was the massive revision, removing 258,000 jobs from the prior months results. Unemployment rate increased from 4.1 to 4.2%. Friday's bond trading was a strong single day move, lowering rates by a full .125%.

Wednesday’s FED meeting was widely anticipated but had very little impact on this week’s trading. There was no change to rates obviously, and the FED’s stance seems to be very similar to prior statements. We will see how Friday’s big miss on employment changes their position as most investors will now certainly anticipate a 25-basis point cut in September.

Next week should be a quiet week as far as economic reports go. We will see if today’s downward movement will continue into next week. Hope everyone has a great weekend and thanks for reading.