Mortgage Rates Sideways to Slightly Lower

Wednesday brought another incremental increase in the level and importance of the calendar events with the power to create volatility for rates. Some of the events were economic reports out earlier in the morning. The other 2 events consisted of the Fed’s policy announcement and the subsequent press conference with Fed Chair Powell.

The economic data was generally unfriendly for rates.  ADP’s payroll count was higher than expected which suggests a higher risk that this Friday’s official jobs report will follow suit (although the correlation is very weak over short time horizons). Stronger employment is bad for rates, all else equal.

The other key report was GDP.  While overall growth picked up to 3.0% in Q2 (much stronger than the 2.4% forecast), there were nuances…