Jayson Bates

45 years ago today, the U.S. bond market hit a record that still stands. September 30, 1981: the 10-year Treasury yield hit an all-time high of 15.84% as Paul Volcker’s Fed waged war on double-digit inflation. The effective federal funds rate stood at 16.58% that day, after exceeding 20% earlier that year, while inflation was running around 11%. September 30, 2026: the 10-year is back around 5.25%, near its highest level since 2007, while the 30-year has breached 5.6%, its highest since 2002. And now another force is hitting the bond market: a flood of corporate debt. Paramount Skydance is preparing a roughly $32 BILLION investment-grade bond sale to finance its Warner Bros. acquisition, potentially one of the largest corporate bond deals in history. The 10-year yield has jumped roughly 47 basis points in September alone, as inflation concerns, government borrowing & massive corporate issuance compete for capital. We are nowhere near Volcker-era yields. But when the price of money rises, it eventually gets felt everywhere: mortgages, corporate borrowing, government interest expense & asset valuations. 45 years to the day after the 10-year Treasury hit its historic peak, the bond market is sending a message worth paying attention to.