10-Year Treasury Yield

What this measures — and why it matters in Philadelphia

The 10-year Treasury yield is the market-set interest rate on lending to the U.S. government for a decade, published daily by the Federal Reserve. It is the benchmark from which nearly every long-term rate in the economy is priced: mortgage rates ride above it, commercial loans spread off it, and every discounted-cash-flow model uses it as the risk-free anchor.

That is why real estate people watch a government bond chart. When the 10-year rises, mortgages follow within days, cap rates drift up with a lag, and richly-priced growth assets get repriced first. When it falls, borrowing gets cheaper and yield-hungry capital pushes back into property. The yield also embeds the bond market's collective forecast of growth and inflation — a rapid move is the market changing its mind about the future.

It is the most volatile series on this dashboard, updating every trading day, so zoom out: the 1-year view shows the current rate regime, while the full history — spanning the 1981 peak near 16% and the 2020 trough under 1% — is the single best chart for understanding what era of capital costs you are operating in.

Related indicators