Although interest rates are about 1/2% higher than this time last year, the number of people getting loans to purchase homes is up 4% from last year.  The takeaway there is that higher rates are not dissuading folks from buying houses.  The higher rates are dampening the refinance market, which is down 41% from last summer.

The second calculation of the second quarter GDP was announced today at a 3.0% growth rate, which is quite an improvement over the first measure at 2.6%.   Speaking of studies ending in “DP”, the ADP Employment Report shows that there were 237K jobs created last month.  That’s much stronger than the 185K expected.  Manufacturing only accounted for 16K new jobs, construction added 18K, and the service sector (that’s what you and I do for work every day) provided an astounding 204K new positions just last month.