Several housing reports released Thursday morning revealed a positive outlook for the U.S. economy. But despite this, the HW 30—HousingWire’s exclusive list of mortgage related stocks—dropped 1.23%.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, jobless claims fell by 23,000 filings to 298,000 applications in the most recent report, hitting the second lowest level since the start of the economic recovery.
Meanwhile, the Challenger, Gray & Christmas job report found that employers plan to cut 45,314 workers from their payrolls, a 0.9% decline from the 45,730 planned cuts announced in October.
Out of all the planned cuts, the financial sector witnessed the biggest reductions, posting 59,189 cuts year to date as decreasing foreclosures reduce staffing needs, analysts with Econoday said.
As HousingWire previously covered, lenders have continued to contract in 2014 to adjust to dwindling mortgage origination volumes, with companies like SunTrust announcing hundreds of staffing cuts.
But regardless of the job layofffs, both Nationstar Mortgage Holdings (NSM) and Ocwen Financial Corp. (OCN) experienced a strong day on the market, rising 2.67% and 0.31%, respectively.
On the other hand, homebuilder stocks posted a tough day, with D.R. Horton (DHI), Lennar Corp (LEN), PHH Corp. (PHH) and Toll Brothers (TOL) falling 1.54%, 0.88%, 2.19% and 0.7%, respectively.
Furthermore, America’s gross domestic product recorded relative growth and increased at an annual rate of 3.6% in the third quarter of 2013, compared to 2.5% in the
