A specialist trader works inside a post on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 23, 2024.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Treasury yields surged Wednesday as Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election over Vice President Kamala Harris, with a Republican sweep in Congress possibly also in the cards.
The 10-year Treasury yield jumped 18 basis points to trade at 4.47%, hitting its highest level since July as investors bet a Trump presidency would increase economic growth, along with fiscal spending.
The yield on the 2-year Treasury was up by 8 basis points at 4.28%, reaching its highest level since July 31. One basis point is equivalent to 0.01%. Yields and prices have an inverted relationship.
NBC News projected that Trump won the presidential election, driven by victories in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. NBC News also projected Republicans are expected to regain their majority control of the U.S. Senate in 2025. The House was still up for grabs, leaving open the possibility of a Republican sweep.
The general thinking on Wall Street ahead of the election was that bond yields could see a big pop in the event of a Trump win, and they could surge in a Republican sweep, where the party captures control of Congress and the White House. That is because Republicans may introduce tax cuts and steep tariffs, moves that could spark economic growth, but also widen the fiscal deficit and reignite inflation.
“If there’s a Republican sweep of House, Senate and the presidency, I expect the bond market to be wobbly,” Jeremy Siegel, finance professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday. “I expect them to be worried that Trump would enact all those tax cuts, and I think bond yields would rise.”
Neither Trump nor Harris really promised fiscal discipline on the campaign trail, raising worries that investors will demand higher yields in exchange for holding Treasuries as the government is forced to issue more and more debt to fund its ballooning spending.
“Bonds are selling off across the yield curve massively as the Trump trade gets applied again,” wrote Byron Anderson, head of fixed income at Laffer Tengler Investments. “We see markets expecting a Trump victory and a real possibility of a Republican sweep.”
The yield can be expected to approach 4.5% in the event of a Trump win, according to Stephanie Roth, chief economist at Wolfe Research.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield surged 50 basis points in October, marking the biggest monthly increase since September 2022.
On Thursday, the Federal Reserve will make its next decision on interest rates and is widely expected to slash rates by a quarter point.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring and Sarah Min contributed reporting.
