U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yield Falls to 4.98% on Safe-Haven Demand
Key Facts
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 4.98% during trading on Thursday, October 22, 2026, according to the Associated Press, as traders sought safety in bonds. The agency compared the session's yield with 5.13% on Wednesday evening, marking a decline in the benchmark yield from the previous day. The yield had exceeded 5.30% earlier in October, according to the same report, before the drop reported by the agency on Thursday. Investing.com linked market moves to escalating tensions in the Middle East, saying they had driven traders into U.S. Treasuries in search of safety. The website noted that the tensions were also accompanied by a rise in oil prices alongside demand for U.S. bonds.
Thursday's decline followed an earlier drop in yields shown in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis series for 10-year constant-maturity Treasuries. The yield in that series stood at 5.12% on October 20, compared with 5.15% on October 19. In a separate report on trading on Tuesday, October 20, Investing.com cited a yield of 5.119% for benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries. The same report said the yield on longer-dated 30-year Treasuries fell to 5.446%. In the mortgage market, the Associated Press reported on Thursday that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell to 7.32%. That compared with an average of 7.40% the previous week, according to figures the agency cited from Freddie Mac.
In the labor market, seasonally adjusted U.S. initial jobless claims totaled 194,000 for the week ended October 17, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis series. That was down from 200,000 for the week ended October 10. The reading was also below the market estimate in Investing.com's calendar, published on the eve of Thursday's data release, which put expectations at 200 thousand claims. Alongside the decline in weekly claims, their moving average fell to 197,750, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The previous revised average was 198,750 for the week ended October 10, putting the weekly decline in the average at 1,000 claims.
By contrast, the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the U.S. Labor Department. The total reached 1,728,000 for the week ended October 10, compared with 1,703,000 the previous week. The department thus recorded a weekly increase of 25,000 people compared with the week ended October 3. On monetary policy, the Federal Reserve had decided in its previous statement, issued in September 2026, to raise the target range for the federal funds rate. It said in the statement that it had decided to "raise the target range for the federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75%–4%." That made 4% the upper bound of the range approved by the central bank at that meeting.
The bond market move and the release of the jobless claims figures come ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee's next meeting in October. According to the calendar published on the Federal Reserve's website, the meeting begins on October 27. It continues through October 28, following September's decision to raise the target range for interest rates to 3.75%–4%. After the meeting concludes, the next U.S. jobless claims release is due on October 29, 2026. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis lists that date as the next update for its initial claims series.