Three days in September repriced the American economy. On Wednesday, September 9, the Treasury Department announced it would buy back up to $6 billion of long-term government bonds — triple the normal size — to calm a nervous market. Yields rose anyway, with the 10-year Treasury closing at its highest level since late 2023. On Thursday, oil blasted above $108 a barrel as the Middle East conflict spread toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the 10-year punched through 4.9%. On Friday, a sticky inflation report pushed the benchmark yield to an official close of 4.96% — within a few basis points of the 5% line that bond traders have dreaded for three years. Reuters called the Friday afternoon pullback “a reprieve for Bessent.” Nobody is calling it an all-clear.
If you are a freelancer, contractor, or digital nomad, this is not a Wall Street story. The 10-year Treasury yield is the gravitational constant of your entire financial life. It sits under your mortgage quote, your student loan payment, your credit card APR, the yield on your savings, the value of the bond fund inside your Solo 401(k), and the exchange rate that decides whether your dollars buy pad thai in Chiang Mai at a discount or at a premium. When it moves 30 basis points in two weeks — as it did between August 26 and September 11 — real money moves in and out of your pocket.
This guide breaks down exactly what happened in the bond market, why a $6 billion government buyback made things worse, what the 5% threshold would mean for you, and the nine moves to make in the next 30 days — timed around next week’s Fed meeting, where traders now price roughly 90% odds of a rate hike. Real numbers, official data, no jargon without translation.
The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.96% on September 11, 2026 — a three-year high — with 5% in sight, after a $6 billion Treasury buyback failed to stop the selloff. Drivers: $108 oil, a hot 3.4% CPI print, $40 trillion in U.S. debt, AI-fueled corporate bond supply, and a Fed that traders expect to hike next week. The 30-year mortgage jumped to 6.76%. The silver lining: 3-month T-bills now pay 4.07% and rising. The 9-move playbook: go short-duration with new cash, lock a CD ladder before Wednesday’s FOMC, audit your 401(k) bond duration, skip refinancing, kill variable-rate debt before the hike, fund Q3 taxes Monday, reprice contracts for inflation, lean into dollar strength abroad, and check the November I-bond reset.
What Happened: The September 2026 Bond Selloff in Numbers
Let’s start with the official record. The U.S. Treasury publishes its daily par yield curve every business day, and the September numbers tell the story better than any headline. Here is where rates stood two weeks before the selloff, and where they landed on Friday, September 11:
| Maturity | Aug 26 | Sep 9 | Sep 10 | Sep 11 | 2-week change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3-month T-bill | 3.85% | 3.95% | 4.00% | 4.07% | +22 bp |
| 2-year note | 4.19% | 4.43% | 4.56% | 4.63% | +44 bp |
| 5-year note | 4.37% | 4.61% | 4.75% | 4.78% | +41 bp |
| 10-year note | 4.66% | 4.83% | 4.95% | 4.96% | +30 bp |
| 30-year bond | 5.18% | 5.28% | 5.37% | 5.35% | +17 bp |
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, daily par yield curve rates. One basis point (bp) = 0.01%.
Three things jump out of that table:
1. The whole curve moved, but the short end moved fastest. The 2-year note — the maturity that tracks Fed policy expectations most tightly — surged 44 basis points in under three weeks. That is the market pricing in not one but several Fed hikes. The Fed’s benchmark rate has sat at 3.50%–3.75% for all of 2026, and traders now see that changing as soon as Wednesday.
2. The 10-year yield hit 4.96% — the highest close in roughly three years. It crossed 4.9% on Thursday for the first time since November 2023, per CNBC, and finished Friday a whisker from the 5% psychological barrier. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget noted the level sits more than 60 basis points above the Congressional Budget Office’s own projections — and if rates stay that far above forecast, it would add an estimated $2.3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
3. The 30-year bond never cooled off. After touching a 19-year record near 5.3% in August (per CRFB), the long bond closed Friday at 5.35%, with the 20-year above 5.38%. Long money is demanding compensation it hasn’t asked for since the mid-2000s.
Why Is the 10-Year Yield Approaching 5%? Five Forces Behind the Selloff
Bond prices fall when investors demand higher yields to hold them, and right now almost every force in the market is pushing yields up at once. Here are the five that matter, with the data behind each.
1. Oil, war, and the inflation tax
The immediate trigger is energy. Brent crude traded above $108 on Thursday — a four-month high — before easing 3% to around $104 Friday as traders took profits. This is an escalation of the Hormuz oil crisis we covered in early September, when $96 oil and record diesel prices were already squeezing household budgets. Since then, CNN reports, the conflict has put the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — the southern gate of the Red Sea that carries roughly a tenth of global seaborne trade — “in jeopardy,” and diesel crossed $6 a gallon for the first time ever. Oil at $100+ is an inflation tax on everything, and bond investors demand higher yields to compensate.
2. Sticky inflation and a hawkish Fed
Friday’s CPI report gave the bond market the answer it didn’t want. Headline consumer prices rose 0.4% in August, keeping the annual rate at 3.4% — matching July, and miles above the Fed’s 2% target. Worse for bonds: core CPI (ex-food and energy) rose 0.3% for the month, 0.1 points hotter than forecast, with the core annual rate at 2.4%. Here is the breakdown:
| August 2026 CPI component | Monthly | Annual | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headline CPI | +0.4% | 3.4% | In line with estimates — but not cooling |
| Core CPI (ex food & energy) | +0.3% | 2.4% | 0.1 pt hotter than forecast |
| Energy | +2.1% | +16.3% | War premium spreading |
| Gasoline | +3.9% | +27.4% | >⅓ of the monthly index gain |
| Food | +0.1% | +2.7% | Grocery costs flat, eating out up |
| Shelter | +0.3% | — | Re-accelerated after two quiet months |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics via CNBC, September 11, 2026.
Traders responded by lifting the odds of a Fed hike at the September 15–16 FOMC meeting to nearly 90% on CME FedWatch — up from about 70% before the report. “There’s no guarantee that the Fed will hike next week, but it’s hard to see how the central bank can justify leaving rates on hold,” Northlight Asset Management’s Chris Zaccarelli told CNBC. Nationwide’s Kathy Bostjancic put it bluntly: rates could stay on hold “only if disinflation continues, and today’s August report did not deliver that.” Chairman Kevin Warsh has already signaled that if inflation doesn’t improve, “we have work to do.” If you want the full savings-and-debt implications of that hike, see our Fed rate hike playbook.
3. $40 trillion of debt and an $1.8 trillion deficit
The structural force under everything: the U.S. government recently passed the $40 trillion debt milestone, per Reuters. CBO’s latest data shows a 12-month rolling deficit of $1.8 trillion through August and a $2.0 trillion deficit for the first 11 months of fiscal 2026. Every dollar of that is funded by selling bonds into a market that is already indigesting. And the political response has not reassured anyone: on September 10, President Trump promised a $5,000 “dividend” to every adult American if his party holds Congress in the midterms — a pledge CRFB estimates would cost $1.2 trillion. Bond investors read that the same way you’d read a roommate announcing a TV purchase the week rent is due.
4. The AI borrowing flood
It isn’t just Washington. CNN notes that a “deluge” of corporate bond issuance funding the AI datacenter buildout is competing for the same investor dollars, pushing up yields across the curve. When hyperscalers and power companies issue tens of billions in long-dated debt, the marginal buyer demands more yield from everyone — including the Treasury.
5. A skeptical global audience
This is a global bond rout, not an American one. European yields are climbing on their own energy shock (the WSJ noted investors bracing for an ECB rate hike), and Bloomberg reported the China–US 10-year yield gap widened to a record this week as Beijing eases while Washington tightens. Foreign official buyers — historically the marginal bid for Treasuries — have bigger problems closer to home. Fewer natural buyers + more supply = higher yields.
The $6 Billion Buyback That Backfired: Bessent vs. the Bond Market
The strangest subplot of the week: the government tried to fix the selloff, and the selloff got worse. Here’s the timeline:
| Date | Event | Market reaction |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 19 | Treasury announces it will at least double bond buybacks September–November | Yields keep climbing |
| Sep 9 (Wed) | Size revealed: first buyback up to $6 billion — triple the standard $2 billion operation — targeting long-dated bonds | 10-year closes at 4.83%, highest since late 2023 |
| Sep 10 (Thu) | $6B buyback executes | 10-year closes at 4.95% — selloff deepens |
| Coming weeks | Additional buybacks of $4B+ each are scheduled | ING: markets are “telegraphing to Bessent that it will be tough for him to have meaningful control over long-end rates” |
A buyback is supposed to work like this: Treasury purchases old, hard-to-trade bonds off the market, prices rise, yields fall, market function improves. What actually happened, per CNN and ING’s Padhraic Garvey, is that investors took the announcement as confirmation that the government itself is worried about long-end rates — and $6 billion is a rounding error against the roughly $2 trillion a year the Treasury needs to borrow. “It’s a little bit of a wake-up call that the real issues of why rates are moving higher are not really being addressed,” Luis Alvarado, co-head of global fixed-income strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, told CNBC. Translation: you cannot buyback your way out of a deficit problem.
What the 5% Line Actually Means
Why does everyone keep saying “5%” like it’s a cliff edge? Three reasons, from three different corners of the market:
It’s where buyers may finally show up. Collin Martin, head of fixed-income research at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, argues 5% on the 10-year is “a psychological level” that “would probably lure in potential buyers who haven’t necessarily decided to move out further on the curve yet.” Yields, he notes, are already near the top of their 16-to-17-year trading range. In other words: 5% may be less a wall than a magnet.
It’s where stocks start to break. Michael Metcalfe, head of macro strategy at State Street in London, warned via Reuters that yields are nearing the point where they “could unleash a selloff in equities” — noting that investors’ 108-day run of adding to risk assets “literally just broke this week.” If you’ve been wondering whether to invest at all-time highs, a 5% risk-free rate is the single strongest argument for patience: cash finally competes with stocks.
It’s where the debt math turns circular. CRFB’s analysis is the scariest document of the week: if rates stay ~64 bp above CBO projections across the curve, interest costs add $2.3 trillion to the debt over ten years, lifting debt to 125% of GDP by 2036 instead of 120%. Higher debt → more issuance → higher yields → higher interest costs. BondBloxx’s JoAnne Bianco summed up the mood: “It’s gone from a higher-for-longer environment to much higher for potentially a lot longer,” with the 10-year “possibly topping 5%.”
Your Mortgage Just Got More Expensive: 6.76% and Climbing
The 30-year fixed mortgage tracks the 10-year yield plus a spread, and it has followed every tick higher. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey for September 10 put the average 30-year fixed rate at 6.76% — up five basis points on the week and the highest in well over a year (Reuters pegs it as the highest since June 2025). Here’s what that does to the actual payment on every $100,000 borrowed, 30-year fixed:
| Rate | Payment per $100k borrowed | Payment on a $400k loan | vs. 6.25% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6.25% | $616 | $2,463 | — |
| 6.76% (today) | $649 | $2,597 | +$134/mo |
| 7.25% (if 10Y breaks 5%) | $682 | $2,729 | +$266/mo |
That $134-a-month difference on a $400k loan is roughly $48,000 over the life of the loan. If the 10-year crosses 5% and mortgage spreads hold, a 7%+ average is realistic — which is exactly why the rate-lock decision matters more this month than at any point in 2026. Practical notes for the self-employed:
- Don’t refinance. Obviously. If you locked sub-6% in 2020–2021, you are sitting on the best asset in your balance sheet. This is the highest-rate environment since then — refinancing destroys value.
- Buying? Lock deliberately. A float is a bet that yields fall before closing; with a ~90%-priced Fed hike Wednesday and oil at $104, the near-term skew is up. Most lenders let you lock 30–45 days free — use it.
- Self-employed borrowers: your DTI just got tighter. The same payment buys less house at 6.76%, and underwriting stress-tests are unforgiving with irregular income. Our guide to getting a mortgage when you’re self-employed walks through the documentation stack (two years of returns, P&L, 1099s) that gets you the best pricing — start assembling it before rates force your hand.
The Silver Lining: Your Cash Is About to Earn the Most Since 2007
Every bond selloff has a buyer’s side, and for savers this is genuinely it. The short end of the curve now pays:
| Instrument (Sep 11, 2026) | Yield | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 3-month T-bill | 4.07% | Rises almost 1-for-1 with next week’s expected Fed hike; state-tax exempt |
| 6-month T-bill | 4.12% | Spans two Fed meetings |
| 1-year T-bill | 4.35% | Locks a year of near-5% policy |
| 2-year Treasury | 4.63% | Highest since the last hiking cycle |
| Top HYSAs | ~4.00–4.50% | Variable — will follow the Fed up, with a lag |
Two years ago this spread didn’t exist. Now, as our T-bills vs. HYSA comparison explains, a ladder of T-bills beats most savings accounts on after-tax yield for money you can leave parked 3–12 months — and unlike HYSAs, T-bill interest is exempt from state and local income tax, which matters if you still file in a high-tax state while living abroad. If you prefer set-and-forget, CDs vs. HYSAs covers when locking a 12-month certificate beats staying liquid — and with a hike likely Wednesday, the smart move is a ladder (split cash across 3-, 6-, and 12-month maturities) rather than one big bet. Keep the operating cash — client-payment float, next month’s rent — in one of the best HYSAs for freelancers and nomads, where it stays liquid and still earns ~4%+.
Debt Math: What Rising Yields Do to Your Credit Cards, Student Loans and Car Note
Rates don’t just punish borrowers — they punish them on different schedules, and knowing the lag is the whole game:
- Credit cards and HELOCs reprice within 1–2 billing cycles of the Fed. These track the prime rate, which moves lockstep with the fed funds rate. A 25 bp hike Wednesday means your ~24% APR becomes ~24.25% within a cycle — trivially small per point, but the direction is the message: there are no cuts coming to rescue you in 2026. If you’re carrying a balance, the avalanche-vs-snowball math now tilts harder toward avalanche: with rates rising, the expensive balance gets more expensive every month you wait.
- Federal student loans: the 2026–27 rates are already locked, but next year’s won’t be. New Direct Loan rates are set each spring off the 10-year auction plus a spread. With the 10-year nearly 50 bp higher than CBO projected, the class of 2027 borrowers should expect meaningfully pricier loans. If you’re in the middle of the SAVE-to-RAP transition, note that RAP’s interest waiver is worth more in a high-rate world — another reason not to sleepwalk into the standard plan.
- Auto loans and personal loans follow the 2–5 year Treasuries, which are up 41–44 bp in two weeks. If you were planning to finance a car this fall, get quotes now before the Fed hike flows through — dealer financing rarely gets cheaper mid-cycle.
Your Portfolio: The Duration Problem Hiding in Your Solo 401(k)
Here’s the part most freelancers miss: you don’t have to own individual bonds to own bond risk. Every target-date fund, every “moderate” allocation, every BND-style total bond index inside your Solo 401(k) or SEP IRA has a duration — the measure of how much its price falls when yields rise. The math is brutal and simple: price change ≈ −duration × yield change.
| Bond holding | Typical duration | If yields rise 50 bp | If yields rise 100 bp |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-bill ETF / money market | ~0.3 yrs | −0.2% | −0.3% |
| Short corporate bonds (1–5 yr) | ~2.5 yrs | −1.3% | −2.5% |
| Total bond market index (Bloomberg Agg) | ~6 yrs | −3.0% | −6.0% |
| 10-year Treasuries | ~8 yrs | −4.0% | −8.0% |
| 20+ year Treasury ETF (TLT-style) | ~16 yrs | −8.0% | −16.0% |
Yields have already risen ~30–45 bp in two weeks. If the 10-year crosses 5% and drags the rest of the curve with it, a long-duration bond fund can lose double digits in a single quarter — the “safe” sleeve of your portfolio becoming the risky one. This is precisely what the pros are telling clients right now:
- Schwab’s Martin: stay below the duration of the Bloomberg Aggregate — under six years — while yields sit near 16-year highs. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to lock in attractive yields, “they’re there.”
- BondBloxx’s Bianco: favor the short and intermediate curve; BBB-rated corporates, high-yield, and emerging-market dollar debt offer yield without the duration blast radius.
- Wells Fargo’s Alvarado: route new money into T-bills (52 weeks or less), but don’t dump the long Treasuries you already own — selling into the selloff locks in the paper loss, and those bonds pull back to par at maturity while paying you a fat coupon along the way.
The freelancer-specific wrinkle: you have no employer plan committee making this call for you. Open your Solo 401(k) statement tonight, find the bond sleeve’s average duration (it’s in the fund factsheet), and decide consciously whether you’re paid to wait out a mark-to-market drawdown or whether you’d rather earn ~4%+ on T-bills with zero drama.
What the Bond Selloff Means for Digital Nomads Specifically
Living abroad adds two transmission channels domestic savers never think about — one working for you, one against you.
The tailwind: a stronger dollar. Capital flows follow real yields, and with the Fed about to hike while China eases (Bloomberg’s record China–US yield gap), the dollar’s carry advantage is widening. For USD-earning nomads in Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Portugal, or Mexico, every basis point of Fed hawkishness is a small discount at the grocery store and the landlord’s door. If you hold balances in multiple currencies, this is the quarter to revisit your split — our guide to the best multi-currency accounts shows how to keep USD working at T-bill yields while spending local currency as needed.
The headwind: imported inflation. Oil at $104–108 raises airfares and fuel surcharges globally — real money if you fly long-haul twice a year — and energy-importing countries export the pain into local rents and menus, shrinking the arbitrage that sent you abroad in the first place. The 9-move Hormuz crisis playbook covers the travel-side tactics: book long-haul early, use award tickets where fuel surcharges are capped, and budget a 10–15% energy premium into this year’s cost-of-living math. One more nomad-specific trap: several digital nomad visa income thresholds are fixed in local currency — a stronger dollar makes you more eligible, not less, so if a visa renewal is coming, higher USD earnings are quietly on your side.
The 9-Move Freelancer & Digital Nomad Playbook
Condensed, sequenced, and deadline-driven. Moves 1–5 are about this week’s FOMC; 6–9 are about the next 60 days.
| # | Move | Why now | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Park new cash in T-bills, not long bonds. 3-month at 4.07% and rising with the Fed; zero duration risk. | Yields could still climb toward 5% | This week |
| 2 | Build a 3/6/12-month CD or T-bill ladder. Lock near-cycle-high short rates across maturities. | A Wednesday hike reprices everything above it | Before Wed Sep 16 |
| 3 | Audit your bond duration. Find the average duration in your 401(k)/IRA bond sleeve; trim above ~6 years, keep what you already own in long Treasuries to maturity. | +100 bp = −16% on 20-yr bond ETFs | This month |
| 4 | Mortgage: lock if buying, never refi. 6.76% and climbing; free 30–45 day locks are cheap insurance. Self-employed? Assemble the documentation stack first. | 7%+ is plausible if 10Y breaks 5% | Before rate-lock expires |
| 5 | Kill or shrink variable-rate debt. Card APRs reprice within 1–2 cycles of the hike. Avalanche the highest-APR balance first. | Prime rises Wednesday (90% priced) | Before statement closes |
| 6 | Fund Q3 estimated taxes Monday. The Sep 15 deadline lands the day before the FOMC. Park the tax money in a T-bill maturing days after each deadline. | 7% penalty math doesn’t care about bond markets | Mon Sep 15 |
| 7 | Reprice contracts for 3.4% inflation. Annual-rate clients at renewal; add a CPI or fuel-surprise clause to big fixed-bid projects. | Your costs are up; your 2025 rate card isn’t | Next renewals |
| 8 | Lean into dollar strength — but book flights early. Shift multi-currency balances toward USD yield; lock long-haul tickets before fuel surcharges bite. | Record US–China yield gap; $104–108 oil | Next 60 days |
| 9 | Re-check your inflation hedges. I-bonds reprice November 1 off the Oct CPI (currently 4.26% — see the I-bond reset guide); with 3.4% CPI, the new composite rate should stay attractive. And top the emergency fund to 6+ months — a 5% yield world is a slower-hiring world. | Nov 1 reset; war-driven energy shock | By Oct 31 |
What to Watch Next: The September 15–16 FOMC and Beyond
The next two weeks decide whether “approaching 5%” becomes “through 5%.” Your watchlist:
- Wednesday, Sep 16 — the Fed decision. ~90% odds of a quarter-point hike to 3.75%–4.00%. The hike itself is priced; what moves markets is the dot plot (does the committee see one hike or a series?) and Warsh’s press-conference language. Our September Effect piece has the scenario planning for stocks; this article covers the bond side.
- The next Treasury buybacks ($4B+ each). If Bessent keeps sizing up and yields keep rising, that’s the market’s clearest verdict that fiscal supply — not market function — is the problem.
- Oil and the Bab el-Mandeb. Brent back above $108 means the 10-year retests 5%; a ceasefire-driven slide toward $90 takes real pressure off the whole curve. Diesel above $6/gallon is already the consumer-level symptom.
- October CPI (mid-October). One hot print buys patience; two starts pricing a series of hikes — that’s when 5% stops being a ceiling and becomes a floor.
- Equity risk appetite. State Street’s broken 108-day risk-on streak is the canary. If stocks and bonds sell off together, cash is the only asset class having a good quarter — which is exactly why moves 1–2 come first.
FAQ: The 10-Year Yield, 5%, and Your Money
What happens if the 10-year Treasury breaks 5%?
No mechanical trigger, but three things get likelier: mortgage averages drift toward 7%+, Schwab-style “buyers appear” logic gets tested (a real bid at 5% could cap the move), and equity valuations face their stiffest competition from risk-free cash since 2007. CRFB’s debt math also accelerates — each sustained 50 bp adds hundreds of billions to decade-out interest costs.
Should I buy bonds now that yields are high?
Short bonds, yes — that’s what the pros quoted above are doing with new money. T-bills and 1–3 year paper let you collect ~4.1–4.7% with minimal price risk. Long bonds are the debate: 5.35% on the 30-year is a generational coupon, but you eat mark-to-market losses if the selloff continues. A barbell — bills for liquidity, a modest long-bond position you can hold to maturity — is the pragmatic middle.
Will mortgage rates come down in 2026?
Not on this data. Rates fall when the 10-year falls, and the 10-year needs cooler inflation, cheaper oil, or credible deficit reduction — none of which showed up in September’s CPI, the Bab el-Mandeb headlines, or Washington’s $5,000-dividend promise. Yahoo Finance’s mortgage desk put it plainly: “the bond market isn’t helping.” Plan around 6.5–7.5% for the foreseeable future.
Is a bond selloff a recession signal?
Usually the opposite — this selloff is driven by strong nominal growth plus inflation plus supply, not by flight-to-quality demand (that would push yields down). The recession risk is downstream: if 5% yields and $108 oil persist, they eventually break something in the economy — housing, corporate refinancing, consumer credit. That’s the two-sided risk the inflation-proofing playbook is built for.
The Bottom Line
The 10-year Treasury yield at 4.96% is the market’s verdict on $40 trillion of debt, $108 oil, 3.4% inflation, and a buyback program it doesn’t believe in. You cannot change any of those. What you can do is make sure your money is positioned for the world they describe: short-duration cash earning its best yield since 2007, a mortgage strategy that doesn’t bet on relief, variable-rate debt shrinking before Wednesday’s hike, a 401(k) bond sleeve you’ve actually read the factsheet for, and a dollar that — for once — goes further abroad the higher American yields climb. The 5% line may or may not break. Every move above works either way.
This article is educational content, not financial, tax or legal advice. Yields, rates and odds move daily — check Treasury.gov, FreddieMac.com and BLS.gov for current figures before acting.
Sources
- U.S. Department of the Treasury — daily par yield curve rates, August 26–September 11, 2026 (all closing yields cited)
- Bureau of Labor Statistics — August 2026 CPI report (Sep 11, 2026): +0.4% m/m, 3.4% annual; core +0.3% m/m, 2.4% annual (via CNBC)
- CNBC (Jeff Cox, Sep 11, 2026) — “Inflation persisted in August, potentially locking in a Fed interest rate hike”: fed funds at 3.50%–3.75%; CME FedWatch ~90% hike odds; Warsh, Zaccarelli, Bostjancic quotes
- CNBC (Michelle Fox, Sep 10, 2026) — “The 10-year Treasury yield is approaching 5%”: Wells Fargo (Alvarado), Schwab (Martin), BondBloxx (Bianco) strategy quotes
- Reuters (Sep 11, 2026) — “US 10-year borrowing costs pull back from 5% in reprieve for Bessent”: $40T debt milestone, Brent $108→$104, State Street’s Metcalfe on the broken 108-day risk-on streak
- CNN (John Towfighi, Sep 9, 2026) — “Bond yields hit highest levels since 2023 after Treasury Department announces up to $6 billion buyback”: buyback mechanics, ING’s Garvey, AI issuance deluge
- Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (Sep 9, 2026) — “10-Year Treasury Yield Hit 4.8%, Highest Since 2023”: +$2.3T debt impact, 125% of GDP by 2036, 30-year 19-year record; (Sep 10) — “$5,000 Dividends Would Cost $1.2 Trillion”; (Sep 9) — 12-month rolling deficit $1.8T
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (Sep 10, 2026) — 30-year fixed at 6.76%; Reuters — highest since June 2025; Yahoo Finance (Sep 11, 2026) — “When will mortgage rates go down? The bond market isn’t helping”
- Bloomberg (Sep 10, 2026) — China–US 10-year bond yield gap widens to record on policy split; WSJ (Sep 10, 2026) — “The Unrelenting Bond Selloff Puts the 10-Year Yield on the Cusp of 5%”