Weekly Unemployment Claims (every Thursday)
Also at 8:30 AM ET was last week’s unemployment update. The figures showed that 216,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week, down from the previous week’s 239,000 initial filings. Forecasts were calling for 225,000 initial claims. Since falling claims is a sign of employment sector strength, this data is considered bad news for mortgage rates. That said, it is only a weekly snapshot of the sector and has had a minimal impact on today’s rates.