In our upside-down economy, where good news for ordinary people means bad news for financial markets, worries about an overheated labor market pushed 10-year Treasury yields to their highest level in 16 years in October. That put pressure on stocks, and lifted the average rate on America’s most popular mortgage into yet-more-inaccessible territory, pushing it above 8% for the first time in 23 years.
But everything may have just changed Friday, when the Labor Department issued its monthly jobs report with a shockingly low number — just 150,000 jobs were created last month, 20,000 fewer than forecasted and barely half of the 297,000 gain seen in September.
