Please Pretend that you are an editor for a financial website like CNBC.com , seekingalpha.com, Barry Habib, Motley Fool.com, MBShighway.com , or MBSlive.com. Write a brief, 10 sentence, and engaging summary, no longer than 10 sentences or a 60 second read, in paragraph style with no bullet points. Total summary should be no more than 10 sentences. This should be no more than a 60 second read for someone with a college freshman reading level. Please give the summary the title of “WTMS Blog Today = What’s up in Mortgage Today – <today’s date in mm/dd/yy format> > > > >”
Next in a separate section, please find the 5 best hashtags that would be best for Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, and especially YouTube. In order to do that, we need the hashtags to be comma-separated. So please always put a “,” between each hashtag. So when you write the hashtags please put a comma between each, and one at the end.
Then At the end, please write a specific, engaging, SEO-optimized Youtube headline that starts “Mortgage Today <today’s date in mm/dd/yy format, Use today’s ACTUAL date in Chicago in the format MM/DD/YY>” and highlights specific info from the passage. Use specific info from the original material to make the headline specific:
Friday – September 6, 2024
Friday started off in the Green. Mortgage bonds are up 13 bps on the day so far. Stock futures down 22.5
Nonfarm Payrolls = 142k vs 160k f’cast
last month revised to 89k from 114k
Unemployment Rate = 4.2 vs 4.2 f’cast, [4.3 prev]
Earnings = 0.4 vs 0.3 f’cast
last month revised to -0.1 from 0.2
If you look at the actual number of people employed over the past year (in other words, ignoring the statistical birth / death adjustments the number of people collecting paychecks fell from 161.5 million to 161.4 million. The total number of paychecks collected has fallen by 66,000 over the past year.
The labor force participation rate was steady at 62.7% and the employment-population ratio was flat at 60%. Over the past year, the employment-population ratio has fallen by 0.4%. Average hourly earnings rose 0.4% for an annual increase of 3.8.
Lots to digest in this morning’s jobs report, but the key development is the ongoing drop in the headline payroll growth. This tips the scales toward a conversation about a 50bp rate cut in the upcoming Fed meeting.
The September Fed Funds futures now are predicting a 59% chance of a 50 basis point cut and a 41% chance of a 25 basis point cut. December futures are pricing in 125 basis points in cuts this year.
New York Fed president John Williams gave a speech at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York earlier today. He was dovish and openly stated he supports reducing the Fed funds target, though judging by the sell off in Treasuries while he spoke he wasn’t dovish enough for the market’s liking. Outside of the Fed Chair, the president of the New York branch has always been one of the most influential FOMC members.
If New York president Williams’s speech this morning wasn’t dovish enough for your taste, Fed governor Waller appeared later and cooed throughout his entire time on stage. Even the title of his speech, “The Time Has Come” was too blatant for anyone to miss. And not only was his speech more blunt and of more interest than that delivered by Williams, the Q&A session that followed was particularly striking.
Today’s release of the Fed’s Beige Book, covering economic activity from mid-July through the end of August, will not be a best seller. Three months ago, 10 Fed districts exhibited growth, while two recorded “flat or declining activity.” Six weeks ago, seven Fed districts showed growth, five recorded no growth or declining growth. Now, just three districts saw growth, while nine were, at best, flat. The trend is most disturbing.
We came into jobs report day expecting some clarity on the size of the Fed’s impending rate cut and in hindsight, it’s abundantly clear that traders felt the same way. The only catch is that the lion’s share of the clarity was reserved for a few short comments from Fed’s Chris Waller. The market initially mistook those comments to suggest a 50bp cut, but swiftly reconsidered. In terms of Fed Funds Futures, the volume and volatility surrounding Waller’s comments were FAR bigger than the action surrounding the jobs report earlier in the morning. Ultimately, it was a good enough day for rates with bonds holding modest gains.
UMBS ended the day up 12 bps at 101.26
