Today is Election Day. If you watch the news every day you might get the impression that the only important races are Federal. However, in the “off” years, there are a slew of local races and even a few state-wide races being contested. The local representatives you vote for today might become Senators or even Presidents years from now. So be sure to vote and choose wisely.
Also of importance as October ended and November began — the jobs report, which followed the meeting of the Federal Reserve Board. While local elections are not going to roil the markets, fresh employment data and the Fed had the potential to cause waves. Add the first reading on economic growth for the third quarter and we had plenty of economic events going on. How did this all turn out?
The Fed’s decision to lower rates by .25% was highly anticipated. Preliminary indications were that this may be the last increase of the year. This was also not surprising, considering the first reading of the third quarter economic growth came in at 1.9%, indicating that the economy was continuing to grow, although at a slower pace than last year. The jobs data ended the week and the addition of 128,000 jobs was seen as better than expected considering we had a strike during the survey period, while the unemployment rate rose to 3.6% due to more workers entering the workforce. Also of importance was the revision of the previous two months upward by 95,000 jobs and wage inflation continuing to grow at a moderate pace. After seeing all this data, we can say that economic growth is slower, but still growing mainly due to the real estate sector and consumer spending.
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.