Glossary · Bonds and rates
Bond yield
A bond’s yield is the yearly return you get if you buy it at today’s price and hold it to the end: its interest plus any gain or loss on the price.
Also called: yield, yield to maturity, YTM, current yield, Treasury yield
November 10, 2026. The benchmark that mortgages and company bonds are priced against.
November 10, 2026.
November 10, 2026.
In plain words
A friend offers you an IOU: “I’ll pay you $40 a year for 10 years, then give you $1,000.” Pay $1,000 for it and you earn 4% a year. Talk the price down to $900 and the same $40 a year earns you more, because you paid less. The return worked out from the price you pay is the yield.
That is why a bond’s yield and its price always move in opposite directions. The payments are fixed on the day the bond is sold; only the price changes afterwards. A lower price means a higher yield, a higher price a lower one.
The yield everyone watches is on the 10-year US Treasury: 4.98% on November 10, 2026. It is the world’s benchmark rate. Mortgage rates, company bonds and even stock prices are measured against it.
Example
Current yield and yield to maturity
A bond has a face value of $1,000, pays a 4% coupon ($40 a year) and matures in 5 years. Its price has fallen to $950.
- Current yield: $40 ÷ $950 = 4.21%. This counts only the interest.
- But at the end you get $1,000 back, $50 more than you paid. Spread over 5 years, that gain adds roughly one more point a year.
- The yield to maturity is the one rate that makes all the future payments ($40 a year plus $1,000 at the end) worth exactly $950 today: about 5.2% a year.
Yield to maturity is the number quoted for bonds. It assumes you hold to the end, the borrower pays everything, and each coupon is reinvested at the same rate.
One level deeper
One bond can have several yields. The current yield is the coupon divided by the price. The yield to maturity (YTM) also counts the gain or loss between today’s price and the face value paid back at the end, and it is the standard number. A callable bond also has a yield to call, in case the borrower repays early.
Why do prices move? Because new bonds are sold all the time at whatever rate the market demands. If new 10-year bonds pay 5%, an old one paying 4% must fall in price until its yield is also about 5%. How far it falls depends on its duration: long bonds move much more than short ones.
Yields differ by borrower and by length. Lenders ask more from riskier borrowers (the credit spread) and usually more for tying money up longer (the yield curve). Underneath them all sit expected inflation and the central bank’s key interest rate.
US Treasury yields since 1990
Three lengths of US government debt, month by month. Short yields follow the Fed’s key rate closely; long yields move with expectations of growth and inflation, and usually sit higher.
The numbers behind the chart
| Date | 10-year note | 3-month bill | 30-year bond |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1990 | 8.2% | 7.9% | 8.3% |
| Dec 1990 | 8.1% | 7.0% | 8.2% |
| Dec 2000 | 5.2% | 5.9% | 5.5% |
| Dec 2010 | 3.3% | 0.1% | 4.4% |
| Dec 2020 | 0.9% | 0.1% | 1.7% |
| Dec 2022 | 3.6% | 4.4% | 3.7% |
| Dec 2023 | 4.0% | 5.4% | 4.1% |
| Dec 2024 | 4.4% | 4.4% | 4.6% |
| Dec 2025 | 4.1% | 3.7% | 4.8% |
| Nov 2026 | 4.9% | 4.2% | 5.3% |
Why it matters
Yields set the cost of borrowing for governments, companies and home buyers: when the 10-year Treasury yield rises, mortgage rates usually follow.
For savers, the yield at purchase is the best guide to what a high-quality bond will return if it is held to the end.
Yields compete with everything else. When safe bonds pay more, stocks and houses have to offer more too, which tends to weigh on their prices.
A common mistake
Myth: A rising yield is good news for people who already own the bond.
In fact: It is good news for new buyers. For owners, a higher yield means the price of the bond they hold has fallen. They come out as planned only if they hold it to the end, when they get the full face value back.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between a bond’s yield and its coupon?
The coupon is fixed when the bond is sold: $40 a year on a $1,000 bond is a 4% coupon. The yield depends on the price you pay: buy that bond for $950 and your yield is above 4%; pay $1,050 and it is below.
Why do bond yields go up when prices go down?
Because the payments are fixed. Paying less for the same $40 a year and the same $1,000 at the end means a bigger return on your money, so the yield rises as the price falls.
What is the 10-year Treasury yield today?
It was 4.98% on November 10, 2026. The 2-year yield was 4.73% and the 30-year 5.35%. Our Treasury yields page has every business day since 1990.
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About the numbers
- The numbers on this page are recalculated from the data every night; the sources are listed at the end of the page.
- US recessions (NBER business cycle dates): National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Business Cycle Dating Committee: US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions.
- US Treasury par yield curve rates: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates (Interest Rate Statistics).
- Treasury yields on this page are par yields from the Treasury’s daily yield curve: the yield of a bond that would sell at exactly its face value at that maturity.
- This page explains a term. It is not investment advice.