Morning edition · Monday, 2 November 2026
35 basis points off the ten-year in October, and a week that sets the receipt
October's bond rally ran from two years to thirty. This week, payrolls, a factory survey and Apple's quarter get to check the arithmetic.
October was the month the bond market gave something back. On the US Treasury’s own daily table, the 10-year par yield closed September at 5.29% and October at 4.94%1. Desk arithmetic: that is 35 basis points lower in a month. The 2-year fell from 4.88% to 4.56%, the 5-year from 5.09% to 4.71%, and the 30-year from 5.64% to 5.31%1.
Bar chart of how far US Treasury par yields fell over October 2026, from Wednesday 30 September to Friday 30 October, in basis points. The 3-month yield fell 4, from 4.20% to 4.16%. The 2-year fell 32, from 4.88% to 4.56%. The 5-year fell 38, from 5.09% to 4.71%, the largest move. The 10-year fell 35, from 5.29% to 4.94%. The 30-year fell 33, from 5.64% to 5.31%. The latest values are the 30 October closes.
Source U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates, 30 Sep and 30 Oct 2026 (home.treasury.gov), retrieved 2 Nov 2026 · U.S. government data, public domain · Bars are desk arithmetic: the difference between the two closing yields.. Figures as reported by the named organisations; facts cited with attribution.
Data (CSV) · SVG · PNG
Latest values as a table
| Value | |
|---|---|
| 3-month: 4.20% to 4.16% | 4 bp |
| 2-year: 4.88% to 4.56% | 32 bp |
| 5-year: 5.09% to 4.71% | 38 bp |
| 10-year: 5.29% to 4.94% | 35 bp |
| 30-year: 5.64% to 5.31% | 33 bp |
The one that barely moved. The 3-month bill went from 4.20% to 4.16%1. Desk arithmetic: 4 basis points, against 32 to 38 for everything from two years out. Bills track the policy rate the Fed has already set; longer bonds price what people expect next. October changed the expectation, not the rate.
Where it stands this morning. Reuters had the 10-year at 4.952% in Asian trading, well below its October peak of 5.3645%, with the 2-year at 4.612%2. Fed funds futures still imply a 72% chance of a quarter-point rise in December, Reuters reported, but only 55 basis points of total tightening is now priced, against more than 70 a month ago2. The Nasdaq lost almost 7% in October, its worst month since April 20252; the bond market’s gain was partly the stock market’s loss.
The week’s receipts. The ISM factory survey lands later on Monday, and the payrolls report on Friday, where the median forecast is for 65,000 new jobs after September’s 29,000, with unemployment holding at 4.2%2. Apple holds its results call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific on Monday3; with US clocks back on winter time since Sunday, that is 23:00 in Berlin.
The calm point. You do not need to guess the week. Each of these numbers arrives on a fixed date, from an institution with a publication calendar, and each will be revised in public. Let the invoices speak in order. Nothing here is investment advice.
What to watch
A rally is a mood; a yield is a price somebody actually paid.
Sources
- Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates, 2026 — U.S. Department of the Treasury, retrieved 02 Nov 2026, 05:14 CET.
- Asian shares slide as AI spending worries mount ahead of tech earnings — Reuters via Business Standard, 02 Nov 2026, 03:03 CET.
- FY 26 Fourth Quarter Results — Apple Investor Relations, retrieved 2 Nov 2026.
Every figure in this piece traces to a source above or to the desk’s own arithmetic on those sources, marked as such. Quotations are short and attributed. Spot an error? Write to the desk; corrections are logged on the method page.
Commentary for information only. Not investment, legal, tax, medical or political advice. Not an offer or solicitation. Analysis may be incomplete or wrong. Charts show published public data, not a trading feed; binding numbers live with the institutions that publish them.