Mortgage rates are unchanged today.
In the second leg of this week’s employment picture weekly jobless claims were reported to have increased by more than expected last week. Furthermore, the Labor Department revised the previous week’s figure higher as well. Bad news for the jobs market is often good news for mortgage rates.
US stocks are trading higher this morning on breaking news out of Greece that they have obtained enough participation from bondholders to complete the debt swap which was a contingency of further bailout funds. Interest rates had benefited earlier in the week on skepticism that Greece would be able to hit this target but as I pointed out in yesterday’s ‘rate update’ we did not think this would ultimately be a hurdle.
Attention will now focus on tomorrow’s all-important jobs report. Expectations are for the economy to have created about 210,000 jobs last month with the private sector creating slightly more than that. A number north of that figure would likely pressure rates higher and vice versa. I shifted to a locking bias yesterday and will hold that position.
Current Outlook: locking bias