Mortgage Rates Jump On Very Strong Jobs Report

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It's a bloodbath in the world of mortgage rates today.  Thankyouverymuch, Non-Farm Payrolls report. 

Like last month, the headlines didn't tell the whole story. 

Markets had expected 125,000 new jobs created but the headline number read 92,000 instead. 

Normally, this would cause mortgage rates to fall but today there's more to the story.  September's jobs report figures got revised higher.  And not just by a little.

To say that the 51,000 new jobs reported last month was understated would be an understatement.  The real number was 148,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's a 290% adjustment.

Not to be outdone, August needed some revisions, too!  For a second time.  The total revisions to August are now 80% higher than the original figure.

With massive revisions like the ones we're seeing, you can't help but wonder if NFP is really NBD.  What good is the data if it's subject to revisions by more than 20%? 

Perhaps re-naming it "Preliminary Non-Farm Payrolls" would be more accurate.  We do this for GDP, we can do it for payrolls.

The thing is, though, markets weren't fooled by today's headlines.  Traders looked right past the fluff and saw that hourly earnings are up again, and that unemployment is at a 5-year low.

As opposed to last month, traders took the "once bitten, twice shy" approach and read past the headlines this morning.  Now, many of them feel that they were on the wrong side of the bet. 

Market violently turned for the worse beginning at 7:30:01 A.M. and mortgage rate shoppers are feeling the pain.

Rates haven't published yet this morning, but early indications are that mortgage rates will be higher by a quarter of a point.