Employment Situation
Tomorrow has two economic reports set for release, one of which is highly influential to the financial and mortgage markets. The key release is November’s Employment report at 8:30 AM ET that contains many employment statistics and readings. Most watched are the unemployment rate, the number of new jobs added or lost during the month and average hourly earnings. Current forecasts show the unemployment rate to have slipped 0.1% to 4.5% while 535,000 new jobs were added back to the economy. The income reading is forecasted to show an increase of 0.4%. The ideal scenario for mortgage shoppers would be a higher unemployment rate, a much smaller increase in payrolls (or a decline) and no change in the earnings reading. That would likely cause bond prices to rise, pushing yields and mortgage rates noticeably lower tomorrow. However, stronger than expected readings may fuel bond selling that would lead to higher mortgage rates.