:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-2246608610-5d92493958d743eab6d3d3cb371b46a4.jpg "If the Fed Is Cutting Interest Rates, Why Are 10-Year Treasury Yields Rising? How Does It Affect You?")
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Key Takeaways
- The 10-year Treasury yield rose to a three-month high on Wednesday morning even as investors awaited an interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.
- The disconnect between official rates and market rates is likely being driven by a variety of factors, including an uncertain economic outlook, rising government debt, and threats to the Federal Reserve’s political independence.
Official interest rates are declining, but not the rates that could matter the most to everyday Americans.
Treasury yields ticked up to a three-month high on Wednesday morning despite near certainty on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve was hours away from cutting interest rates. The 10-year Treasury yield, which influences interest rates on a variety of consumer loans including mortgages, rose Wednesday morning to 4.21%, its highest level since early September. Meanwhile, traders put the probability of a quarter-percentage-point cut today by the Fed at about 90%.
Conventional wisdom says that Treasury yields decline as investors grow more confident the Fed is about to cut its policy rate, but that’s not what’s happened in recent weeks. The probability of a rate cut increased 7 percentage points in the past two weeks, while the 10-year yield has risen about 20 basis points.
Why This Is Important
Elevated interest rates have weighed on economic growth, especially in rate-sensitive corners such as the housing market, for several years. Evidence that the labor market weakened in recent months is supporting arguments for rate cuts by the Fed, but financial market conditions could reduce the impact those cuts have on consumers.
The Fed doesn’t directly set the interest rates paid by consumers and businesses. Instead, it sets the rate it pays banks for the money they hold in reserve accounts at the Fed, which effectively sets a floor on interest rates. From there, market forces like supply and demand take over, which can drive a disconnect between monetary policy and interest rates out in the wild.
Wall Street’s concerns about the growing U.S. national debt could be helping to nudge yields higher. The tax cuts included in the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July, are expected to add more than $3 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. Investors may be demanding more compensation for buying U.S. government debt because they’re concerned about the government’s ability to pay up in the future.
Policy uncertainty and geopolitical risk could be weighing on demand for U.S. Treasurys from international investors, historically major buyers of U.S. debt. President Trump’s unpredictable tariff policies sparked a Treasury and U.S. dollar sell-off earlier this year. Though recent Treasury market data suggests foreign appetite for U.S. debt, while not as robust as it once was, remained healthy through September.
Rising yields could reflect uncertainty about the trajectory of inflation and, subsequently, monetary policy. Inflation has remained elevated this year, likely boosted by President Trump’s tariff policies. Investors are unsure if tariffs will drive sustained price increases that the Fed would need to respond to with tighter policy, or whether policy can loosen as inflation returns to its downward trajectory.
President Trump’s attacks on the Fed’s independence could be adding to inflation and interest rate uncertainty. The president has made several attempts to exert greater influence over the central bank, raising concerns in domestic and international markets that U.S. policy could become untethered from economic reality. Trump is expected to soon name a successor to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May, early next year.
