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Bad news: The Labor Department says the economy added only 80,000 jobs in October. That's short of the 95,000 jobs that economists had expected.
Good news: The unemployment rate dipped to 9 percent after it had been stuck at 9.1 percent since April. And the August and September job figures were revised to show 102,000 more jobs than previously reported.
What does that mean for mortgage rates? Usually, a good jobs report pushes rates up and a bad report results in lower rates for a few days. But this isn't a usual week. Investors have all eyes on the European mess right now and seem to care about nothing else. The G-20 summit wraps today after leaders of the biggest economies in the world have spent days discussing, among other issues, how to balance the global economy and how to prevent the European debt crisis from spreading. Then there is the chaos in Greece, which is on the verge of collapse and doesn't seem like it can get its act together.
If you want to know what's going to happen to rates in the next few days, ask the Greeks. Believe it or not, they are ruling our mortgage world right now. If you can't reach the Greeks, try reading Bankrate's Mortgage Rate Trend Index. About 62 percent of our panelists, including me, expect rates to drop next week. We'll see if I'm right.
Follow me on Twitter @Polyanad.
