A year-opening bond rout has pushed longer-term interest rates to new pandemic-era highs, sending shock waves across financial markets.
U.S. traders had barely switched on their computers last Monday for the first trading session of the year when bond prices started tumbling. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which rises when bond prices fall, jumped in just one day from its year-end close of 1.496% to 1.628%. By Friday, it had settled at 1.769%, smashing through its 2021 closing high of 1.749% to reach its highest level since January 2020, before officials reported the first Covid-19 case in the U.S.