08/07/2026
Mortgage rates ended the week lower.
Stop me if you have heard this before… Hormuz Strait to open under a 30 to 60 day ceasefire. Iran will control (and toll) ships entering the strait, Oman will be in charge of the outbound channel. Oil futures fell 7.6% this week after rising 21.8% for the month of July. The SPR saw another crude draw of 2.8mm barrels this week, but total reserves excluding the SPR rose 2.5mm. The deeper the draws on reserves, the less ability the country has to absorb continued price shocks from higher oil costs. Another incentive to reach a deal to open the Strait.
Non Farm Payrolls released what was initially a shocker today showing -23k jobs lost in July. Digging a little deeper into the report, government payrolls fell -53k while private payrolls grew 30k. And digging even deeper, ~40k of the private payroll job losses in Leisure and Hospitality were due to the World Cup coming to close. All in, a pretty great report that reduced rate hike odds, but did not cause panic in the market.
Next week we will see the July CPI and PPI inflation reports. Current Fed rate hike odds for September are 44%.
