Portland Mortgage Market Update — January 5, 2024

Nice work on the meeting Pete! Here is what I have for this week

Happy First Week of 2024! Here is this week's market update

Rates worsened slightly this week due to a couple jobs reports that came out. On Wednesday ADP issued their report saying the economy added 164K new jobs in December, well above the 130K estimate. Most of these jobs came by way of restaurants, hotels, and healthcare workers. However, today the BLS jobs report dropped and while that also came in hotter than expected showing a 216K increase (vs a 170K estimate), but also revised the previous two months of reports downward by 71K! So the market is calling BS on the BLS and has improved a bit on the day. Currently rates are hovering around 6.625%.

BS on the BLS? Good one! Thanks, but this has been a recurring trend with the BLS report (an ADP for that matter). They issue reports without the full data only to revise them in later months. Also, a key point in the report that I think is finally starting to gain traction is the household survey. In it, they revealed that over 1.5M Full Time workers lost their jobs in December. Part time workers increased by 762K, and multiple job holders increased by 222K. The market is finally starting to acknowledge that people losing their full time jobs and being forced to take part time/multiple jobs to make ends meet does not indicate a strong economy.

Next week brings the all important inflation data. The CPI report drops on Thursday and the PPI on Friday. Hopefully these will continue the trend of the past couple of months showing inflation easing which would support the idea that the Fed will start cutting their rates this coming Spring.

That's it for this week! I am around all weekend on my cell so feel free to reach out if there is anything I can help you with.