Mortgage Bonds are continuing lower, with yields higher, meaning mortgage rates keep climbing.

The housing market is stable for now, the way a Jenga tower is stable right before someone pulls the wrong piece. Rising rates mean shrinking approval amounts, and that pressure has to land somewhere, namely home values, as buying power quietly evaporates.

Until tariffs are removed, the Iran conflict ends, and fuel prices drop, we’re stuck standing on a chair missing a leg. Something has to give. Or everything does, all at once, which is the outcome nobody wants.

Job openings in August fell 256,000 to 7.08 million, missing estimates of 7.23 million. The labor market, politely declining to cooperate.

The telling number is the quits rate, still stuck at 1.9%, a measure of people confident enough to voluntarily change jobs. This low, it’s basically everyone deciding to sit very still, a strong signal of a weak job market.