November 1st, 2019 7:01 PM by T. Fanning
Last Updated: 11/1/19 Friday's bond market initially opened in positive territory before moving into negative ground after the employment data was posted. Stocks are rallying on the news with the Dow up 239 points and the Nasdaq up 75 points. The bond market is currently down 7/32 (1.71%), but strength late yesterday should help keep this morning's mortgage rates slightly lower than Thursday's early pricing. If you saw an intraday improvement late yesterday, then you may see a slight increase this morning. October's Employment report was the first of this morning's two major economic releases. It gave us mixed results about the employment sector, showing that the economy added 128,000 new jobs while September and August's numbers were revised higher to add 95,000 more jobs year to date than previously thought. That was the bad news. The favorable data came from the unemployment rate that inched higher to 3.6% and average hourly earnings that rose 0.2% even though they were expected to do so. While these readings show some strength and weakness in the employment sector, it is the payroll number that is drawing the most attention. The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) October manufacturing index was posted late this morning. This highly important index measures manufacturer sentiment. They announced a reading of 48.3 for October that was a little below forecasts and a small increase from September's 47.8. This means that surveyed manufacturers felt slightly better about business conditions than they did in September but not as good as many analysts had expected. Furthermore, another month below the threshold of 50.0 is also good news for mortgage rates. Unfortunately, this was not enough of a variance to offset the impact of the headline payroll number that traders are dwelling on. That has prevented a stronger reaction to the ISM news. Next week brings us a handful of moderately important economic reports in addition to a couple of Treasury auctions that tend to be influential on mortgage rates. Monday does have one of those reports with the release of September's Factory Orders. Look for details on all of next week's scheduled events in Sunday evening's weekly preview. If I were considering financing/refinancing a home, I would.... Lock if my closing were taking place within 7 days... Float if my closing were taking place between 8 and 20 days... Float if my closing were taking place between 21 and 60 days... Float if my closing were taking place over 60 days from now... This is only my opinion of what I would do if I was financing a home. It is only an opinion and cannot be guaranteed to be in the best interest of all/any other borrowers.* *http://www.hlmcolorado.com/DailyRateAdvisory
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