We are now three-quarters of the way through the year. We ended the quarter with an important reminder with regard to the markets. Simply put — you can’t predict the future. Take interest rates. Everyone was convinced that rates were going to continue to rise this year. Yet for most of the year, rates have fallen. And finally, when everyone is convinced that rates will be falling for the rest of the year, they spike upward. Though they are still much lower than originally predicted.
Oil was pretty calm this quarter–until the attack of the Saudi oil fields. The attack brought an immediate reaction in the oil markets with the price of oil topping $60 per barrel before easing a bit. Actually, the spike was pretty tame compared to previous oil scares. Yet, no one could have predicted this attack — and no one knows what might be coming next. Because you can’t predict the future.
We can’t even predict what the employment numbers will be like on Friday. Generally, job growth has quieted down this year, but the individual months have been quite volatile. We had one month where job gains hit 300,000 and another month in which job gains were closer to 50,000. That is a lot of variation. The Federal Reserve Board meets again later this month after lowering rates in their last meeting and this report will be watched closely as we try to guess what the Fed may do. Our guess is that the members of the Fed don’t know what they will do. After all, they can’t predict the future, either.
Dave Hershman is the top author in the mortgage industry. Dave has published seven books, as well as hundreds of articles and is the founder of the OriginationPro Marketing System and Mortgage School. Want to send this commentary and other news in a personalized format to your sphere database or on social media? Sign up for a free trial at www.OriginationPro.com.