Weekly Unemployment Claims (every Thursday)
Last week’s unemployment update is expected to show 196,000 new claims for unemployment benefits were filed, up from the previous week’s 191,000. Rising claims is a sign of employment sector weakness. Therefore, the higher the number of new filings, the better the news it is for mortgage pricing. That said, since this just a weekly snapshot, it will take a wide variance from forecasts for the report to have a noticeable impact on rates.