Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey?, showing the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.34%. ?The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased again this week but remains below its 52-week average of 6.71%,? said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac?s Chief Economist.
With pension fund hedging largely in the rearview mirror, interest rate differentials are likely to become a more dominant driver of foreign exchange movements, said Desjardins. Uncertainty remains around which central bank -- the Bank of Canada or the Federal Reserve -- will ultimately ease more relative to current market pricing, stated Desjardins.
* Chicago Fed estimates unemployment rate steady at 4.3% in September. * Planned layoffs drop 37% in September, hiring slow according to Challenger. * Intuit sees small business hiring down in Q3. * Government shutdown delaying jobs, other data. By Lucia Mutikani and Ann Saphir.
National Bank of Canada maintained its Outperform rating and $4.25 price target for Foran Mining (FMCXF) after a site tour of the McIlvenna Bay project in Saskatchewan. The site was significantly further advanced since the bank's last visit in October 2023, with construction 56% complete and progressing 6-8% per month.
Regulatory News: S?ch? Environnement announces the success of its first issue of Deeply Subordinated Perpetual Notes, for an amount of ?300 million, aligned with its Green Financing Framework. This hybrid "green" issue strengthens the Group's capital structure and reinforces its credit quality.
Political dysfunction is far and away the leading economic and policy concern for muni market participants, according to a new Bond Buyer infrastructure survey.
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan on Thursday said the U.S. central bank appropriately cut rates last month to guard against the risk of a sharp deterioration in the job market, but said that so far the cooling is gradual and signaled she is not eager to cut rates further.
AM Best has assigned a Long-Term Issue Credit Rating of ?bbb? to the recently issued $300 million, 4.7% senior unsecured notes, due October 2030, of Horace Mann Educators Corporation. Horace Mann intends to use the net proceeds from the issuance of the notes for general corporate purposes, including repayment of an existing $250 million, 4.5% senior unsecured notes due December 2025.
Bank of Tanzania Thursday said its Monetary Policy Committee decided to leave the central bank rate at 5.75%. Inflation in mainland Tanzania was 3.4% year over year in August, "well" within the target range of 3%-5%, while in Zanzibar it declined to 4.0% year over year from 4.2%, which was also within the target, noted BoT in its policy statement.
AM Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A+ and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of ?aa-? of The Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, Limited, the wholly owned operating subsidiary of Dai-ichi Life Holdings, Inc.. The outlook of these Credit Ratings is stable.
* Gold hit record high of 3,896.49 per ounce earlier. * US private payrolls declined in September. * US central bank expected to cut interest rates this month. By John Biju and Noel John. Oct 2 - Gold prices fell nearly 1% on Thursday, retreating from a record high hit earlier in the session, after Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan urged caution on further interest rate cuts.
CD rate yield curve continues to be inverted, as volume of rate changes doubles from August SEATTLE, Oct. 2, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- CD Valet?is a digital marketplace that connects consumers with the best CD rates and terms nationwide, helping community financial institutions effectively attract new deposits. Mary Grace Roske, head of marketing and communications for CD Valet.
ING said it expects the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to cut rates by 25bps to 2.75% next Wednesday, in line with consensus and pricing. Markets are betting on two more cuts after October, which looks a bit premature, having not yet seen Q3 consumer price index data, wrote the bank in a note.
By Jamie McGeever. After the Federal Reserve resumed its interest rate-cutting cycle last month, Chair Jerome Powell signaled that incoming U.S. economic data would play an even more critical role than usual in determining the central bank's next steps.
* Futures: Dow flat, S&P 500 up 0.28%, Nasdaq up 0.58% * Credit bureaus fall after FICO unveils new licensing model. * AMD up on report Intel (INTC) considers adding co as foundry customer. By Niket Nishant and Sukriti Gupta.
-Alternate data from public and private sources, a substitute for official statistics delayed by a government shutdown, showed the U.S. job market likely remained stalled in September with sluggish hiring but no change in an unemployment rate economists see as influenced by falling numbers of foreign-born workers.
The U.S. unemployment rate likely was 4.3% in September, unchanged from August, according to a new "real-time" estimate from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago published on Thursday.
LISBON, Portugal, Oct. 2, 2025 The European Central Bank has concluded a framework agreement in ranking with Feedzai, the world's leading RiskOps platform for financial crime prevention, as the first-ranked tenderer, to provide the central fraud detection and prevention mechanism for the digital euro.
While the cost of caring for older people can pressure municipal issuers, in states like Florida wealthy seniors can also contribute to economic vibrancy.
The yen weakened modestly at the start of Thursday's European trading session following a closely watched speech from Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Shinichi Uchida, said MUFG. The Japanese rate market has moved recently to price in a much higher probability of the BoJ resuming rate hikes at the end of this month, wrote the bank in a note to clients.
The central banks of the United Arab Emirates and Turkey signed a bilateral currency swap agreement of a nominal size of 18 billion UAE dirham and 198 billion Turkish lira, they each said on Thursday. The Turkish central bank said the swap deal is designed to provide local currency liquidity to financial markets and enable more efficient settlement of commercial and financial transactions.
Wall Street futures pointed again to new highs, as investors crowded back into tech shares and bet on rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. Following the sagging ADP national employment report on Wednesday, the CME FedWatch tool estimates a 98.9% chance of a 0.25% rate cut at the central bank's late October policy session.
The central banks of the United Arab Emirates and Turkey signed a bilateral currency swap agreement of a nominal size of 18 billion UAE dirham and 198 billion Turkish lira, the UAE central bank said on Thursday.
* Futures: Dow down 0.06%, S&P 500 up 0.17%, Nasdaq up 0.37% * Credit bureaus fall after FICO unveils new licensing model. * AMD up on report Intel (INTC) considers adding co as foundry customer. By Niket Nishant and Sukriti Gupta.
What matters in U.S. and global markets today. By Mike Dolan, Editor-At-Large, Finance and Markets. With the U.S. government still shut down and China on holiday, world markets lapped up Federal Reserve easing speculation and European stocks hit record highs - riffing off the available U.S. labor market data as well as AI and trade-related themes.
By Mike Dolan. What matters in U.S. and global markets today By Mike Dolan, Editor-At-Large, Finance and Markets. With the U.S. government still shut down and China on holiday, world markets lapped up Federal Reserve easing speculation and European stocks hit record highs - riffing off the available U.S. labor market data as well as AI and trade-related themes.
Futures tied to Canada's main stock index were flat on Thursday, as investors took a breather after the previous session's record peak when a sharper contraction in domestic manufacturing fueled expectations of further rate cuts by the Bank of Canada. Futures on the S&P/TSX index was flat at 1,776.20 points as of 05:42 a.m. ET.
Eurozone inflation accelerated on Wednesday, with the headline consumer price index hitting 2.2% year over year while core stayed at 2.3% for the fifth consecutive month, said ING. The figures were fully in line with market expectations and largely driven by energy prices, wrote the bank in a note.
Investors have anticipated for weeks the risks of a U.S. government shutdown to markets. A shutdown that lasts at least several weeks could cause confusion about the Federal Reserve's monetary policy path as the central bank will be without government data that helps guide its decisions, while also posing a possible drag on economic growth the longer it extends.
* EM stocks up 1.25%, FX flat. * Romania producer prices rise 3.21% year-on-year. * Romania's unemployment rate rises to 5.9% in August. * CCC slips after reporting Q2 results. By Nikhil Sharma. Emerging market stocks hit a more than four-year high on Thursday, buoyed by expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut this month, while currencies were range-bound amid the U.S. government shutdown.
* Futures: Dow down 0.03%, S&P 500 up 0.16%, Nasdaq up 0.35% Futures tied to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq indexes rose early on Thursday, a day after weaker-than-expected private payrolls data bolstered hopes for interest rate cuts, while traders braced for a data-light session due to the U.S. government shutdown.
The European Union's financial risk watchdog called on Thursday for urgent safeguards on stablecoins only partly issued in the bloc, echoing a warning from the European Central Bank, which is worried that their failure could induce a run on reserves. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency designed to hold a steady value by being pegged to a reserve asset such as a currency or basket of assets.
Nigeria's daily oil and gas production slumped during a brief nationwide strike by oil workers' union PENGASSAN that was called off on Wednesday after government-mediated talks with Dangote Refinery, according to an impact report seen by Reuters.
Greece's jobless rate stood at 8.1% in August, down from an upwardly revised 8.3% in July, data from statistics service ELSTAT showed on Thursday. Seasonally adjusted data showed 383,788 people were officially unemployed. Unemployment impacted women more than men, at the rates of 10.6% and 6.1%, respectively.
* Gold climbed to all-time high of $3,895.09/oz on Wednesday. * US private payrolls decline in September. * Upside risks to $4,000 mid-2026 gold forecast have intensified - Goldman Sachs. By Ishaan Arora.
Advancing the preparation of a digital euro, the European Central Bank has announced the conclusion of the framework agreements for each of the five digital euro negotiated procurement procedures. A digital euro, issued by the Eurosystem, would be a complement to banknotes and coins, intended to give citizens more freedom of choice when paying digitally in the future.
Stocks in South Korea, Taiwan, and
Singapore scaled records on Thursday and broader emerging Asia
equities hit multi-year highs, fueled by AI-related frenzy and
softer U.S. jobs data that stoked bets ...
California Water Service (CWT) said late Wednesday it sold $170 million worth of senior unsecured notes and, through a subsidiary, $200 million of first mortgage bonds in private placement deals. The notes consist of $70 million of series A 4.87% notes due 2032 and $100 million of series B 5.22% notes due 2035, while the bonds consist of $200 million of 5.64% bonds maturing 2055, the company said.
* Bund yields hold steady, in line with strong Treasuries. * US private sector jobs report flags weakening labour market. * US government shutdown stirs up uncertainty. * France, Spain hold bond auctions later.
Taiwan is considering forming a high-tech strategic partnership with the U.S., which wants increased Taiwanese investment, the island's top tariff negotiator said on Thursday, giving an update on talks with Washington. Taiwan, home to the world's biggest contract chipmaker TSMC, runs a large trade surplus with the United States.
The Swiss National Bank may be a special case, but if you were looking for a switch in the behavior of central bank reserve managers in their currency preference, then the Swiss case is a curious vignette.
The U.S. dollar, long renowned for its strength, has been weakened by President Donald Trump's stiff tariffs, his attacks on the Federal Reserve and his distancing from allies and global institutions.
Shutdowns that delay data and weaken fiscal visibility often encourage central banks to act more cautiously, while rising yields in Japan hint at policy shifts that could ripple through global funding markets.
CALGARY, AB, Oct. 2, 2025 In response to a speech given by Governor Tiff Macklem of the Bank of Canada in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on Sept. 23, 2025, Friends of Science Society have issued an open letter to him, challenging Macklem's claims that Canadians just have to "roll up their sleeves."
* Gold hit record high of $3,895.09/oz on Wednesday. * US private payrolls decline in September. * Goldman Sachs sees more upside for gold. By Brijesh Patel. Gold prices held steady on Thursday, hovering near the record high hit the day before, helped by expectations of further U.S. rate cuts this year and political uncertainty.
Global stocks gained and gold traded near record highs on Thursday as investors took in their stride the potential ramifications of a U.S. government shutdown, while a weak private U.S. labor market report bolstered bets for Federal Reserve rate cuts.
In general the bond market is volatile, and fixed income securities carry interest rate risk. (As interest rates rise, bond prices usually fall, and vice versa. This effect is usually more pronounced for longer-term securities.) Fixed income securities also carry inflation risk and credit and default risks for both issuers and counterparties. Unlike individual bonds, most bond funds do not have a maturity date, so avoiding losses caused by price volatility by holding them until maturity is not possible.
Lower-quality debt securities generally offer higher yields, but also involve greater risk of default or price changes due to potential changes in the credit quality of the issuer. Any fixed income security sold or redeemed prior to maturity may be subject to loss.
Before investing, consider the funds' investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Contact Fidelity for a prospectus or, if available, a summary prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully.
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