US 30-year Treasury streak: what do 5% yields mean for global investors? - South China Morning Post

What the report says

Post Magazine, citing the South China Morning Post report by Sylvia Main in Shanghai, reported that the yield on the 30-year US Treasury bond stayed above 5% for a 13th straight trading session on Thursday, the longest such run since 2007. The move has intensified questions among global investors about whether expensive long-term borrowing is temporary or becoming a more durable feature of markets.

The report said fading expectations for lower US interest rates have helped keep pressure on bond prices, while long-maturity yields are increasingly being shaped by worries about US fiscal policy rather than only Federal Reserve signals. Cliff Zhao, chief economist at CCB International in Hong Kong, and Vera Jiang, the bank’s global strategist, were cited as saying yields near 5% may occur more often than in earlier periods.

The article linked investor concern to Washington’s rising debt burden and fiscal outlook, including the passage last year of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” described in the report as combining record tax cuts with higher defence and border-security spending. Zhao and Jiang said elevated yields were not expected to cause an immediate debt crisis, but could limit future fiscal flexibility and push investors to seek a larger premium for holding longer-term US debt.

Why it matters: US Treasuries are widely treated as a global benchmark for risk-free returns. When long-term yields remain high, equities, corporate bonds, property and emerging-market assets must compete with a more attractive safe yield, potentially redirecting global capital and raising financing costs for governments, companies and households.