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Advantage Lending
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Eleanor Thorne NMLS 67179
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Bonds Circle The Wagons Ahead of High Risk NFP

Bonds Circle The Wagons Ahead of High Risk NFP

The consensus for tomorrow's NFP (nonfarm payrolls, the principal component of the big jobs report) is 110k--not much of a downgrade from last month's 139k.  The bond market has recently been trading as if it expects to see an even lower number--a fact that's not too surprising given the preponderance of other data that suggests a weaker labor market in June. The latest in that list was today's ADP employment report which completely whiffed (-35k vs 95k f'cast). Bonds initially rallied on that news, but didn't maintain the gains, possibly due to all of the preemptive rallying already in place over the past 2 weeks, and possibly because ADP is notorious for paradoxically diverging from NFP on any given month despite broad long-term correlation. Today's weakness was minimal in the bigger picture and could just as easily be viewed as part of a 2-day process of circling the wagons (pausing and modestly correcting a prevailing trend on the eve of high-consequence data).

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Bonds Circle The Wagons Ahead of High Risk NFP

MBS & Treasury Markets
UMBS 5.5 99.71 -0.13 10YR 4.331% +0.051% 7/3/2025 9:51AM EST
ADP employment was this morning's key economic report and it came out sharply weaker than expected (-33k vs 95k f'cast). There are many past examples of a "miss" of this size prompting a swift rally on the bond market.  Although that looked like it could have been in the works in the first few minutes, bonds have since reversed course and moved back in line with weaker overnight levels.  What's up with that? To some extent, global bond markets are experiencing some ...   READ MORE
Today's Mortgage Rates
30YR Fixed 6.75% +0.02% 15YR Fixed 5.98% +0.01% 7/3/2025
Mortgage rates have generally been falling since May 21st and have done nothing but move lower for more than 2 weeks.  That winning streak finally came to an end today with the average lender moving up 0.06% for a top tier 30yr fixed quote. While that's a moderately big jump for a single day, if we remove the past 4 days from the equation, today's rates would still be the lowest since early April.  In other words, we're still in solid shape in the bigger picture....   READ MORE
Economic Calendar
Time Event Period Actual Forecast Prior
Thursday, Jul 03
8:30AM May Trade Gap (bl) May $-71.5B $-71B $-61.6B
8:30AM Jun/21 Continued Claims (ml) Jun/21 1964K 1960K 1974K
8:30AM Jun Participation Rate Jun 62.3% 62.4%
8:30AM Jun Average earnings mm (%) Jun 0.2% 0.3% 0.4%
8:30AM Jun/28 Jobless Claims (k) Jun/28 233K 240K 236K
8:30AM Jun Non Farm Payrolls (k) Jun 147K 110K 139K
8:30AM Jun Unemployment rate mm (%) Jun 4.1% 4.3% 4.2%
9:45AM Jun S&P Global Composite PMI Jun 52.9 52.8 53
9:45AM Jun S&P Global Services PMI Jun 52.9 53.1 53.7
10:00AM May Factory orders mm (%) May 8.2% 8.2% -3.7%
10:00AM Jun ISM Services Prices Jun 67.5 68.7
10:00AM Jun ISM Services Employment Jun 47.2 50.7
10:00AM Jun ISM Biz Activity Jun 54.2 50.0
10:00AM Jun ISM N-Mfg PMI Jun 50.8 50.5 49.9
11:00AM Fed Bostic Speech
2:00PM Happy 4th!!
Friday, Jul 04
12:00AM Happy 4th!!
Read My Latest Newsletter
After going to great lengths to explain why the Fed Funds Rate isn't the same as mortgage rates, we'll now have to discuss how the Fed nonetheless found a way to push rates lower this week. We already know the Fed held rates steady last week, and we've discussed the fact that mortgage rates wouldn't necessarily have fallen even if the Fed had cut the Fed Funds Rate. But mortgage rates definitel... READ MORE
Team Leader
Advantage Lending
License:
Eleanor Thorne NMLS 67179
https://advantagelending.com/mortgage-loan-officer