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Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Thursday: Unemployment Claims, NY Fed Q2 Household Debt and Credit Report

by Calculated Risk on 8/13/2014 07:26:00 PM

Thursday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. The consensus is for claims to increase to 295 thousand from 289 thousand.

• At 11:00 AM, the Q2 2014 Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit will be released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

On mortgage rates: I use the weekly Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®) to track mortgage rates. The PMMS series started in 1971, so there is a fairly long historical series.

For daily rates, the Mortgage News Daily has a series that tracks the PMMS very well, and is usually updated daily around 3 PM ET. The MND data is based on actual lender rate sheets, and is mostly "the average no-point, no-origination rate for top-tier borrowers with flawless scenarios". (this tracks the Freddie Mac series).

MND reports that average 30 Year fixed mortgage rates decreased slightly today to 4.17% from 4.18% yesterday.

One year ago, rates were at 4.41% and rising.   So rates are down year-over-year, but up from late 2012 and early 2013. Daily rates peaked last year at 4.85% in early September.