Nice Little Recovery For Mortgage Rates

As of yesterday afternoon, mortgage rates were right in line with the highest levels in more than a month. The upward momentum was largely a product of 2 specific days: the October 29th Fed announcement and yesterday's duo of economic reports that suggested less cause for concern over the labor market and strength of the services sector. Now today, we have different economic data telling a different story.  Were it not for the government shutdown, the market may have never placed nearly as much emphasis on today's data. In fact, today is the first time that many market participants have even heard of one of the reports (a synthetic jobs report by Revelio). Revelio's data suggested a decline in payrolls in October.  Combined with separate data that showed a surge in job cuts, there was a clearly negative message for the labor market. Bad economic news helps bonds which, in turn, is good for rates. All told, today's move completely erased yesterday's damage. The average mortgage lender made it almost all the way back down to last Friday's levels. [thirtyyearmortgagerates]