Consistent Creep In The 10-Year Yield

The calendar has turned the page, and while it was an extreme month in some aspects of the equity market, Treasury markets were even more extreme (or painful depending on your perspective).  As shown below, the 10-year yield has been rising for the better part of a year now, and September saw a big breakout to the upside with yields ending the month at the highest level since June 12, 2007.

Finishing at 5.28%, the 10-year yield rose 53.5 bps during September. As shown below, that monthly gain ranks in the 95th percentile of all months since 1962 and was the single largest monthly increase in the 10-year yield since September 2023.

While the size of the move in September was large, it was far from setting a record. More notable was how consistently the 10-year moved on a daily basis the month with increases on 16 of the month's 21 trading days (76% of trading days). That is the highest share of up-days in any given calendar month since April 1981, when it rose on 81% of the month's trading days.  Only three other months on record saw a higher consistency of up days, and they were all decades ago. September 1969 and April 1970 likewise saw more than four-fifths of trading days with higher yields, while February 1966 is the other instance at 77.8%.