Market commentary

After five straight days of a rally in the U.S. Treasury market, today is the reversal of that trend. Non-farm Payrolls grew 117,000 in July, higher than the estimate of 85,000. June was revised up to 46,000 from 18,000. Combing through the details, 154,000 private payrolls were created and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.1% from 9.2%.

Overall the employment data was positive, however, job growth needs to be at 200,000 plus per month to begin to absorb the jobs lost over the past 3 years.

Global stock markets have been hammered the past two days, and although the positive jobs data in the U.S. gave some relief, the problems in the European Union continue to threaten financial stability.

The U.S. stock market’s initial reaction to this morning’s jobs report was positive, however, that has quickly reversed to another steep decline. U.S. Treasury prices are lower as well with the yield on the 10 year note now standing at 2.45%, up from 2.41%. Mortgage prices are worse between .375% and .50%.