For many investors, Friday's jobs report confirmed expectations that the Federal Reserve is on track to cut interest rates

The job market remains stable but isn’t growing substantially. This may lead to more interest rate cuts when the Fed meets in December.

The US Federal Reserve appears likely to lower benchmark interest rates again later this month, after cutting interest rates at its previous two meetings. CLick to read.

Inflation stayed stubborn, and the job market bounced back in recent reports, but not enough to derail market expectations that the Federal Reserve would boost the economy again in December with another rate cut.

November’s payrolls report keeps open the door for a quarter point rate cut this month, though next week’s CPI data still needs to be cleared.

A further quarter-point cut in December has been expected, but recent inflation data raised concern that progress may have stalled. One key measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index stripped of food and energy costs, has been mired in a range from 2.6% to 2.8% since May, well above the Fed's 2% target.

The latest snapshot of the US labor market nudged the Federal Reserve closer to lowering interest rates later this month, but didn’t quite seal the deal with a key inflation report looming.

Don’t be fooled by the healthy rebound in U.S. payroll growth of 227,000 in November. It’s a big number that was above expectations, but much of that was not new job growth. Rather, it was the return

The 227,000 increase in new jobs in November was inflated by workers returning to their jobs after a pair of major hurricanes and a strike at Boeing. Just how much? Some 30,000 of the "new" jobs were likely Boeing employees.

Why can't a "strong" labor market also mean affordable mortgage rates? On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released what was generally considered a positive jobs report for November. Though unemployment inched up slightly from 4.