US 30-year Treasury yield tops 5.6% during trading, highest since 2002

The yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond continued its climb Tuesday (local time), breaking through 5.6% during trading — its highest level in roughly 24 years.

The 30-year yield surged as high as 5.613% during the session, its highest reading since 2002, according to CNBC. As of 2:50 p.m. that day, the yield stood at 5.600%, up 3.8 basis points from the previous session. (One basis point equals 0.01 percentage point.)

The 30-year yield has now risen for six consecutive sessions.

At the same time, the 10-year Treasury yield — the global benchmark for interest rates — traded at 5.264%, up 2.2 basis points from the prior session. The policy-sensitive 2-year yield was little changed at 4.922%.

The bond market is under pressure from multiple fronts: a prolonged US-Iran war has kept oil prices elevated, stoking inflation fears, while a wave of large corporate bond issuances has added to supply-demand strain.

Experts are divided on the recent bond selloff. Mark Dowding, chief investment officer at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, said the selloff in global bond markets had been excessive.

However, Masahiko Lu, senior fixed-income strategist at State Street Investment Management, warned that competition for capital remains fierce, with renewed Treasury supply ahead of Thanksgiving, heavy corporate bond issuance and persistent demand for AI capital expenditure all converging. "The risk of increased volatility in the Treasury market is significant," he said.