Matthew Graham

Wren Kitchens plans a kitchen showroom at Workington’s former Listers Furnishers site, as Cumberland Council considers shopfront and external alteration plans.

Whytes Bakes, from the team behind Whytes Kitchen, opens in Carlisle on December 3, serving artisan bakes, speciality coffee and creating five new jobs.

Carlisle United striker Micah Obiero is only fit enough to make the bench for Kenya in their Africa Cup of Nations qualifying match against South Africa.

This morning's Producer Price Index (PPI) came out as expected. The components that impact core PCE were also uneventful. Stocks and bonds initially rallied but the gains were erased in less than 20 minutes. Higher oil prices coincided with the bounce toward higher yields, but the longer-term correlation remains weak enough that we wouldn't read too much into that. After 9:30am, stocks are selling off enough to bring bond yields just a hair lower from intraday highs. All-in-all, we suspect the modest weakness in 10yr Treasuries is best viewed through the lens of traders squaring yesterday's curve trading positions amid lighter mid-November liquidity. 5yr yields just hit'unchanged' levels and MBS are close to doing the same.

Existing-home sales had another rough month, and just hit their lowest level since August 2010. Mortgage rates are largely to blame.

Mortgage applications bounced back in the latest week, with both purchase and refinance activity moving higher. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported a 6.2% increase in total application volume for the week ending November 6, 2026. NOTE: That Nov 6th date is important as it marked the bottom of the range for interest rates after a nice decline that began in mid October. Rates have risen sharply since then so all that follows is likely a bit of a retrospective. In other words, application demand will probably fall again in next week's data thanks to this week's higher rates. Purchase applications led the improvement, rising 8% on a seasonally adjusted basis, while refinances increased 5%. Despite the weekly gains, both categories remain well below year-ago levels. Purchase applications were still 18% below year-ago levels , while refinance activity was down 57% . The refinance share of total applications held steady at 39.8%, while adjustable-rate mortgage applications accounted for 10.9% of activity, down slightly from the previous week. “The declining trend in rates helped to spur stronger application activity, although the pace of purchase and refinance applications remain considerably lower than a year ago,” said MBA's Joel Kan. FHA and VA purchase applications saw particularly strong gains. The FHA rate fell below 7% for the first time in several weeks, reaching 6.98%, more than 20 basis points below the conforming rate. It is important to note: Kan references the Freddie Mac rate survey here, and real rates have risen materially in the past few days.

In 3 short days, the average top tier 30yr fixed mortgage rate has risen 0.32% to 7.50%, erasing a vast majority of the improvement seen over the past 5 weeks. Today's increase wasn't nearly as sharp as each of the previous 2 days, but it wasn't small either.

Bonds lost ground on Friday, but not for any new, overt reasons. At times, weakness coincided with higher oil prices, but we don't love that explanation considering oil was higher on Monday when yields were substantially lower. PPI data is also not a compelling market mover as it came in right in line with forecasts and doesn't look like it will pass much through to core PCE. Given that short term yields rallied (2yr still down 2bps), much of today's volatility could simply be explained by curve trading amid lighter liquidity. In the bigger picture, the decisive selling pressure of the past 2 sessions basically leveled off and now we wait for the next shoe to drop.

Carlisle-raised actress Lisa McGrillis returns as Valerie Jones in Rivals series two, alongside Danny Dyer, in Jilly Cooper’s hit 1980s television drama.

Uniqlo’s UK expansion into regional cities sparks Carlisle store speculation, although the Japanese fashion retailer has announced no plans for the city.