Weekly Unemployment Claims (every Thursday)
Today’s only relevant economic data was last week’s unemployment update at 8:30 AM ET. It revealed new claims for benefits spiked to 261,000 during the week, touching their highest level since October 2021. Rising claims signal a weakening employment sector, making the data good news for bonds and mortgage rates. Since this is just a weekly snapshot, we usually see a subdued reaction to the results with little impact on rates. However, with so little scheduled this week, especially the latter days, there has been a bit stronger reaction today than we normally see.