A loud rumble from the Unemployment Report toppled bond prices early Friday morning and sent mortgage rates jumping for the first time in many weeks.  Could it be that a lower-than-expected jobless rate of 10.0% (versus 10.2%) is a signal that the job market is on its way to recovery?  At the moment, it seems as if layoffs are at least slowing down compared to the beginning of the year.  Whether that justifies an across-the-board increase of 0.25% remains to be seen – this week we have the equally inflammatory Retail Sales report on Friday and two influential Treasury auctions leading up to that.  Retail Sales is a measure of consumer spending, which comprises about 2/3rds of the national economy.  Current forecasts call for a 0.7% increase in sales from October’s levels – anything more than that will surely accelerate the upward momentum caused by the jobs report.