哪些因素在推高利率并压低债券价格

The biggest question confronting investors today isn’t about AI, market concentration, or technology. Instead, it’s about the bond market.

Like nearly everything in investing, it’s rarely about any one thing; instead, a mix of factors drives interest rates. Some matter more than others, but together, they can create a perfect storm of elements that have driven yields appreciably higher.

Let’s run through a dozen of these to see what’s driving bond prices lower, the investment opportunity this creates, and the risks that keep investors up at night (but perhaps shouldn’t).

My list, from most to least significant:

What Is Driving Rates Higher and Bonds Lower

1. Oil and the Iran war premium. Brent is over $100; the Iran conflict remains unresolved –and worse, is unlikely to end until 2027 (if we are lucky). Energy is +16% y/y. THIS IS THE BIGGEST FACTOR impacting CPI inflation. Oil drives transportation costs for goods (diesel for ships, trucks, and rail) and home heating/cooling, travel, and commuting. Goods inflation affects Shelter prices. Oil also impacts fertilizer costs, raising food prices.

Note: Core CPI is nonsense – it’s “inflation ex-inflation” — ignore it, and watch Energy if you want to know where inflation is going.

2. Reaccelerating growth, driven by CapEx in the Artificial Intelligence sector, including the data center buildout. September PMIs showed output growing at the fastest pace in over five years. Although we won’t see the first Q3 GDP numbers until October 29th, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is at 3.7%.

Remember, a hot economy does not need cheap money; the market is repricing expectations accordingly.

3. Long-term rate normalization. I discussed this extensively last week (“The Aberrational Century”). It is an uncomfortable possibility that perhaps 2001–2021 was an anomaly, and what we are seeing is a reminder of what normal yields look like historically.

From 1960 to 2007, the 10-year average was 6–7% nominal, tracking GDP growth; today, nominal GDP is running 5–6% (with CPI inflation a major factor). At 5%, the 10-year Treasury is not an outlier. Real 10-year yields near 2% are back to their pre-GFC range. A zero-rate decade(s) was a product of temporary conditions: throw in a Fed balance sheet at 35% of GDP – and that is before we discuss the deficit…

4. COVID fiscal stimulus and the CARES Acts. The numbers are shocking: CARES Act 1 ($2.2 trillion, March 2020), CARES Act 2 December 2020 package (~$900 billion), both under Trump; the American Rescue Plan aka CARES Act 3, under Biden ($1.9 trillion, March 2021). All three were $5 trillion in fiscal stimulus in one year. That was the largest fiscal stimulus as a percentage of GDP since World War Two.

That regime change was from monetary to fiscal stimulus. It permanently reset the deficit baseline: spending never returned to pre-2020 levels, while interest costs compounded; it added trillions to the debt that now has to be rolled at 5% instead of 1%; and it destroyed the market’s assumption that inflation was structurally dead.

5.  Trade and tariff policy. Tariffs feed directly into goods inflation (and into the Fed’s reaction function). Alienating foreign creditors while needing them to buy our Treasuries is an avoiable, self-inflicted wound. Speaking of which:

6. Hawkish Fed’s hiking cycle. Warsh delivered the first hike since 2023 in September (Fed funds 3.75–4.00%); that level comes from a secondary source and should be checked against the Fed statement), said summer inflation readings “do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved,” and the dot plot has 16 of 19 members projecting more. Futures price 70%+ odds of another hike in October and better than even odds for December. The front end is repricing the entire path.

7. Japan leading global yields higher. JGB 10-year at ~3.08%, up 143 bp y/y, with the BOJ at 1.25% and likely hiking again in October. Japan’s 30-year is now above 4%. Higher domestic yields reduce the incentive for Japanese institutions, historically the largest foreign holders, to buy U.S. Treasuries. Foreigners hold ~30% of US Treasury stock — slipping marginal demand matters.

8. Corporate supply competing with Treasury. Data-center/AI capex is being financed in the bond market, with estimates of $250B this year and up to $400B next. Yields are attractive (at the expense of credit quality and too many unknowns to ignore). But those bonds are competing head-on with the Treasury for the same investor dollars, and IG spreads have widened ~35 bp since August as refinancing costs rise.

9. Sticky inflation. August CPI ran +0.4% m/m, 3.4% y/y headline, with core at +0.3% m/m. Gasoline alone was a third of the monthly gain; airfares +23% y/y. The PMIs showed input costs rising at the steepest rate in 4 years, with pricing power improving — and that points to higher prices in the pipeline.

10. Weak natural demand for long-dated paper (and Bessent knows it). 10-year auction in August was highest-yielding since 2007; the 2-year cleared at 4.79%. Treasury doubled its long-end buybacks to $4B per operation explicitly to “provide liquidity support.” Beat the House: Buying back $6B when you owe $40T is LOL foolish.

11. Deficits and the term premium. Deficits running ~6% of GDP at full employment, with interest costs consuming roughly 30% of federal revenue. Investors are demanding more compensation to hold duration against fiscal uncertainty.

12. The Fed is reducing duration. Aggregate QT ended December 1, 2025, after taking the balance sheet down $2.2 trillion from its $8.5–9 trillion peak, and since then the Fed has actually re-expanded Treasury holdings by ~$364 billion through short-dated “reserve management purchases.”

The Fed balance sheet is NOT shrinking in total; what is shrinking is the Fed’s long-duration holdings: MBS continue to run off (down ~$794 billion from the 2022 peak to $1.91 trillion).

Expect more Fed balance sheet runoff in 2027.

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Note: I suspect many investors are still anchored in lower 21st-century rates and the painful 2022 selloff, and are not taking full advantage of this…

Previously:
The Aberrational Century (September 29, 2026)

What’s Upsetting the Bond Market? (August 25, 2026)

T-Bills and Chill? Try Munis & Chill Instead (September 10, 2026)

Corporate vs Treasury Debt Duration (September 8, 2026)

Understanding Investing Regime Change (October 25, 2023)

Who Is to Blame for Inflation, 1-15 (June 28, 2022)

Managing Stocks & Bonds During a Low Yield Era (November 18, 2020)

Ex-Inflation, There is No Inflation (September 26, 2005)

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