Commentary: According to the Labor Department the number of Americans filing claims for first-time unemployment benefits fell to a five-month low last week, while the economy grew slightly more than previously reported in the second-quarter.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 391,000, well below economists' consensus forecast for 420,000.
Separately, Gross Domestic Product (a statistical guesstimate of the market value of all the goods and services produced in a country in a given period) grew at an annual rate of 1.3% in the second quarter.
Mortgage investors blew off the much better-than-expected decline in the weekly jobless claims figure as a statistically anomaly -- while the upward revision to Q2 GDP had been priced into the mortgage market for some time.
Uncle Sam will wrap up this week's $99 billion borrowing spree with the sale of $29 billion of 7-year Treasury notes at 1:00 p.m. ET. The offering is expected to draw solid demand from domestic as well as foreign investors. If so, this event will likely prove supportive of steady to perhaps fractionally lower mortgage interest rates. I'll post the auction results on my website as soon as possible after the final gavel falls.
THE MARKET IS ALWAYS RIGHT! . YOU AND I ARE SOME OF THE TIME
