Mortgage Rates Drop For Second Week in a Row, Freddie Mac Says

Average mortgage rates fell to their low🥃est level since 💟mid-March this week, according to Freddie Mac.

The average interest on a 30-year, fixed-rate loa🦹n is 6.77%, 12 basis points from l🐟ast week.

"Although mortgage rate relief has not arrived as quickly as many expected, the recent downward trend is encouraging news for homebuyers who have been hindered by high rates," said Realtor.com Economist Jiayi Xu.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Jobless Claims Surge Last Week

The number of people a𝓡pplying for unemployment insurance for the first time surged last week, nearly twice the pace economists expected.

Some 20,000 more people applied for unemployment insurance last week, growing to 243,000 total. That's far more than the 229,000 total economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires expected.

Total new claims matched the highest number reported so far this year, which was first reported early last month.

The jump comes as the Federal Reserve is starting to keep a particular eye on the labor market. As inflation comes down and the labor market softens, central bankers want to 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:ensure that unemployment doesn't 🔥spike.

"Jobless claims came in higher than expected and that’s a reminder of the main risk to the current economic expansion and bull market," wrote Chris Zaccarelli, Chief Investment Officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.

However, the weekly jobless claim number is highly volatile and prone to large swings. Economists typically use a rolling average of initial jobless claims to get a more stable measure. The four-week moving average was up 1,000 from the previous week to 234,750.

"Recent data are indicative of a modest softening in the labor market, but there is no cause for alarm just yet," wrote Moody's Analytic Economist Dante DeAntonio. "Despite the recent volatility, the four-week moving average of initial claims was essentially unchanged from the June payroll reference period to that for July."

Most of the labor market's recent slowdown 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:has been in hiring, DeAntonio wrote, which is exactly what the Federal Reserve intended when it set high interest r✤ates.

"To the extent that the job market remains robust and unemployment levels remain low, the economy will continue to expand – albeit at a slowing pace – and that is what will continue to propel this bull market to new heights, even if there is some volatility and pullbacks along the way," Zaccarelli wrote.