This week we saw a rebound in the stock market, leaving the bond market alone at the dance. The quiet week in the economic data leaves little to sway the market back to their dance partner of last week.
It wasn’t until Thursday that the weekly payroll numbers (usually a ho-hum for the market) raised eyebrows at 17,000 DECREASE in jobless claims, bringing the jobless number down to 216,000.
Not only were fewer people filing for unemployment, but the number was almost 3 times more than the norm. Good news for employment but bad news for inflation and therefore mortgage rates.
Then on Friday we received notice that the CPI was down 0.1%, the core rate (excluding volatile numbers like gas), was up 0.2%. Which was a normally neutral number, but assuaged the market’s inflation fears, and brought some of the bond market suitors back to the dance.