10-year Treasury yield

What investors earn to lend money to the U.S. government for ten years — the benchmark long-term interest rate.

What it measures

The yield on a hypothetical 10-year Treasury note at par, interpolated from prices actually quoted in the market that day.

How it is measured

The Treasury builds a daily yield curve from bid quotes on the most recently issued securities. Daily, business days only, not seasonally adjusted.

Reading it over a presidential term

A market price set continuously by investors worldwide, usually read as their collective expectation of growth, inflation, and Fed policy, plus a premium for tying money up. Daily data gives a term about a thousand points, so coverage is never the problem here.

What it leaves out

A single point on a curve. It carries no information on its own about why the yield moved — the same 4% can mean healthy growth or an inflation scare.

Which direction counts as better?

Low yields mean cheap government borrowing and cheap mortgages; they also mean low returns for pensions and savers, and often a pessimistic view of growth. There is no direction the site can assign.

Chart this series · See it by president · Download the data · The source at FRED