Weekly Mortgage Rates Rise, Halting Two-Week Slide

This article was first published on NerdWallet.com.

Mortgage rates didn't move much in the week ending Aug. 21. That's disappointing for homeowners who wish to refinance their mortgages.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose two basis points to 6.68%, according to rates provided to NerdWallet by Zillow. A basis point is one one-hundredth of a percentage point.

Markets deal with conflicting signals

This slight increase is a bummer because it arrested a downhill slide. The 30-year mortgage rate had fallen for the previous two weeks and is noticeably lower than just a few months ago, after lingering at around 7% from April through June.

Since the Trump tariffs were announced in April, financial markets have tried to assess their effects on inflation and employment. It turns out that both economic indicators are getting worse. The core consumer price index rose from 2.9% in June to 3% in July, while the unemployment rate rose from 4.1% to 4.2%. Job growth slowed way down, with nonfarm payrolls increasing a total of just 106,000 jobs from May through July, compared to 380,000 in the three months before that.

It's unusual for inflation and unemployment to go up at the same time, and the phenomenon puts the Federal...