Posted To: Mortgage Rate Watch
Mortgage rates moved higher at the fastest pace in more than 3 weeks today, following a much stronger-than-expected jobs report. The Employment Situation is widely regarded as the single most important economic report month in and month out. It always has the potential to move markets–especially interest rates. Economists and analysts actively attempt to predict the results of the report and the median forecast is generally “priced-in” to markets ahead of time. In other words, high or low job creation, in and of itself, doesn’t push rates higher or lower on the actual day of the report. Rather, it’s the gap between the consensus forecast and the actual result. In today’s case, the median forecast called for the creation of 180k new jobs while the actual tally was an impressive 255k. Wages…(read more )