4.95% at Tuesday's close, about 4.90% by Berlin's breakfast

On Tuesday, election day, the US Treasury’s official closing yields were 4.61% for the two-year note and 4.95% for the ten-year¹. That was a touch higher than Monday’s 4.59% and 4.91%, and well below where October began, at 4.78% and 5.24%¹. The chart shows the month: a slow drift, one sharp drop on 22 October, and a quiet Tuesday.

Then the count started. As CNBC’s election desk projected a Democratic House, with the Senate still undecided, investors sold stock futures and bought bonds. By about 04:20 CET the ten-year yield had fallen nearly 5 basis points to 4.902% and the two-year 6 basis points to 4.55%, CNBC reported². Yields fall when prices rise. Those are overnight quotes, not closes, which is why the chart stops at Tuesday.

The dollar went the other way. The euro firmed 0.5% to $1.1249, the yen 0.7% to 157.63 per dollar, and the dollar index fell 0.3% to 101.4, Reuters reported³. Against the Swiss franc the dollar lost 0.9%³. Carol Kong of Commonwealth Bank of Australia said a Democratic sweep “would limit government spending over Trump’s term”³. Others were less sure the election was the point at all. “I don’t think the big risk to markets is from the blue wave; it’s investors overreacting to a blue wave,” said Michael Arone of State Street⁴. Tai Hui of J.P. Morgan Asset Management asked how much of the move was politics and how much the AI story of recent weeks, and leaned to the latter⁴.

Desk arithmetic: the gap between the ten-year and two-year closed Tuesday at 0.34 percentage points, against 0.46 on 1 October¹. Overnight, on CNBC’s quotes, it was about 0.35². In plain terms, the night moved the level of borrowing costs, not their shape. For you, holding euros, a dollar that is 0.5% cheaper makes American goods and holidays slightly cheaper, and dollar savings slightly smaller in euros. Neither is a reason to act before a close. Nothing here is investment advice.