Stacy Bush: Long-term Rates Creeping Higher

Stacy Bush

Tuesday, November 10th, 2020

With all the election chatter and stock market volatility, it may have been easy to miss the ongoing uptrend in long-term interest rates.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond is sitting just below 1%. Just a few short months ago, the 10-year was yielding roughly 0.5%.

What's fueling the rally? More demand for money, which is the result of a pickup in economic activity. When businesses see economic conditions improving, they look to expand their operations. When entrepreneurs see exciting new opportunities, they look to raise money to finance their projects.

By contrast, a weaker economy tends to promote a "flight to quality," which increases the demand for treasuries and drives yields lower. 

Will interest rates continue to go higher? That’s uncertain. Rates fluctuate, and there’s a possibility that long-term interest rates may reverse course and start to trend lower. A lot will depend on business confidence in the months ahead.

With rates ticking higher, some people may wonder if it's an opportunity to boost bonds' exposure to capture the higher rates. It's a good thought, but you can consider many factors before boosting the bond portion of an allocation model, including the outlook for inflation, the dollar and other macroeconomic factors.

This information should not be construed by any client or prospective client as the rendering of personalized investment advice. All investments and investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss, and there can be no assurance that the future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy including those discussed in this material will be profitable or equal any historical performance levels. Investment strategies such as asset allocation, diversification, or rebalancing do not assure or guarantee better performance and cannot eliminate the risk of investment losses. Any target referenced is not a prediction or projection of actual investment results and there can be no assurance that any target will be achieved. Stacy Bush is with Bush Wealth Management.