Good Tuesday AM from your hometown lender,

A little data today which is moving markets ever so slightly.

The Jolts report shows more jobs available than expected. Consumer confidence also beat to the upside. The 10-yr is handling it well, trading down to 4.07%. Mortgage bonds are off a little bit. For the most part, markets are reacting normally leading into a Fed meeting. The muted response is really an indication that markets see a possibility of the Fed turning dovish and pushing yields higher today could become costly tomorrow. That is at least my hope.. It is tough to float into a big news event (the Fed meeting is certainly a big news event) however with the Fed decision at 11AM, if you float, you will likely have some time tomorrow AM to see where markets are.

That said, workers called it quits less frequently in 2023, a sign confidence in the labor market is falling, as the economy is expected to slow and Americans are taking longer to find new jobs. That is a turnaround from the years just after the pandemic took hold, when resignations surged and companies faced labor shortages. Last year, workers quit 5.6 million fewer jobs from January through November than the same period in 2022—a decline of 12%, according to the Labor Department.

I loved this report:

Mortgage rates in the US will decline this year, stoking optimism about the battered real estate market, according to the latest Bloomberg Markets Live Pulse survey. The rate on a 30-year, fixed mortgage is expected to fall to 5.5% at the end of the year, according to the median from 236 respondents. That’d be down more than a full percentage point from its current level of about 6.69%, and the first annual decline after three straight years of gains.

And how about this…

Amazon is cutting hundreds of jobs. So are Macy’s and Wayfair. But one retail worker is still in high demand: Walmart superstore manager. Walmart is giving bigger bonuses and adding stock awards to their annual pay packages, pushing the total compensation for the best ones to more than $400,000 a year. The retail giant has thousands of store managers who act as midlevel executives. Many start as clerks and climb the ranks without college degrees.

Please stay safe and healthy, and make today great!