MORTGAGE RATES NEAR HISTORIC LOWS: 3.55%

U.S. longterm mortgage rates are near historically low levels, with the average on the benchmark 30year loan falling this week to its lowest level since November 2016.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the average rate on the 30-year loan slipped to 3.55% this week from 3.60% last week. The rate stood at 4.51% a year ago.

The average mortgage rate for 15-year, fixed-rate home loans eased to 3.03% from 3.07% last week.

The low borrowing rates have been a boon for homebuyers, even as global financial markets are roiled by concerns over the global economy.

U.K.’s JOHNsON PrEssEs FOr FrEsH BrExIt tALKs.

France joined Germany on Thursday in challenging British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to show he can come up with a better alternative to the main sticking point in the stalled Brexit negotiations, giving him a month to prove that he can break the deadlock on the Irish border question.

Johnson tried to exude confidence and charm in Paris as he pressed French President Emmanuel Macron to accept his request to reopen Brexit negotiations.

But like German leader Angela Merkel the day before, Macron just smiled indulgently and dampened British expectations, stressing “we have to respect what was negotiated.”

WEAK wOrLD DEMAND AND trADE tAKE tHEIr tOLL ON U.S. FACtOrIEs.

Bigger cracks are forming across America’s manufacturing foundation after lackluster global demand and persistent trade tension led to the first contraction in U.S. factory activity since September 2009.

The IHS Markit manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ index slipped to 49.9 from a final July reading of 50.4, according to a preliminary August report released Thursday that trailed all estimates in Bloomberg’s survey of economists. Fifty is the dividing line between expansion and contraction. The reading for the U.S. follows others from Europe and Japan that showed shrinking factory activity.