10-Year Treasury Rises to 2% for First Time Since January

By Amey Stone

Treasury yields continued to rocket higher Wednesday in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential win.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year note climbed above 2% for the first time since late January. As of 1 p.m. ET, it was 15 basis points higher than Tuesday’s close at 2.03%.

A weak 10-year Treasury auction inauspiciously scheduled for Wednesday didn’t help matters. Aaron Kohli of BMO Capital Markets writes:

The buying was very weak and could auger even more pain for the bond tomorrow. Every element of the stats was weak and the auction was worse than we expected. Highlights that the event risk of the recent election is not quite over yet. It’s difficult to see a silver lining in the auction results and our target for 2.15% on 10s looks closer than it did even a few hours ago.

The rise in the 10-year yield was even more astounding considering the 10-year yield fell to a low of 1.72% shortly after midnight when Trump’s odds of winning the election started to improve. In essentially 12 hours, the 10-year yield rose 31 basis points.

The 30-year Treasury bond posted a 20 basis points over Tuesday’s close to 2.83%. Its low point Tuesday as election results were being reported was 2.52%. Its yield is also now 31 basis points higher than that low point.

Strategas Research Partners’ Thomas Tzitzouris explained in a note Wednesday afternoon:

The rise in real yields, after an opening plunge late in overseas markets, is a bit perplexing. They both can be explained away in hindsight with the simple argument that it was “risk off”, then “risk on” which drove the trend in real yields while the broader trend in inflation expectations was bound to push real yields up as well. But this isn’t entirely satisfactory and it certainly doesn’t explain why the world’s safe haven asset is behaving like anything other than a safe haven. As the Trump agenda begins to slowly filter through, market trends will eventually begin to make more sense, but for now, it’s insightful to note that the bond market is indicating that monetary and fiscal policy are likely to both be more accommodative than previously expected. Whether either of those assumptions turns out to be true is yet to be decided.

The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) was down 3.6% to $125.40 at 1 p.m. ET