Weekly Unemployment Claims (every Thursday)
The other release will be last week’s unemployment figures, also at 8:30 AM ET. They are expected to show that 225,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week, down from the previous week’s 232,000 initial claims. Since rising claims hints at employment sector weakness, the higher the number the better the news it is for mortgage rates. However, because this is only a weekly report, it likely will have little impact on tomorrow’s mortgage rates unless it shows a significant variance and the Durable Goods Orders is uneventful.