Why are Treasury yields spiking? 10-year tops 5.17% in the worst week for US bonds since 2025

The 10 year Treasury yield touched 5.17% on Friday November 13 and closed the week near its highest point in months, handing long duration bond holders one of the steepest weekly losses in over a year. The trigger was this month's producer price report, which kept the annual rate of producer inflation near a three year high and reinforced the Federal Reserve's hawkish turn. This is a new event: yields repriced on the October PPI print and on what it implies for the December policy meeting, not simply an extension of earlier Fed commentary.

What the producer price report showed and how far bonds sold off

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the October producer price index on Friday November 13, 2026. Final demand producer prices rose 0.3% month over month, a touch below the 0.4% economists had projected, but costs excluding food and energy were up a firmer 0.5%. Measured against a year earlier, the final demand index stood at 160.248 for October against 150.439 a year prior, an annual increase of about 6.5%, up from September's 6.3% and among the highest readings since late 2022. Traders read the report as confirmation that price pressures at the producer stage are not cooling fast enough for a patient Fed.

Related reading: 10-Year Treasury Yield Breaks Below 5% on Flight From Equities.

The move then broke through levels the market had been defending. According to the Treasury's daily par yield curve data, the 10 year closed at 5.15% on November 13, up from 4.86% a week earlier, after reaching 5.17% at the session high. That weekly gain of roughly 29 basis points was the steepest one week climb for the 10 year across all of 2026. The Financial Times described it as the worst week for US Treasury bonds since the 2025 selloff that followed what markets dubbed the liberation day tariff announcement of that spring. European government bonds followed US paper lower by the same logic, with core euro zone yields drifting up as the repricing crossed the Atlantic.

Who pays and who stands to gain

The immediate losers are holders of longer duration paper. A 29 basis point rise in the 10 year implies a measurable decline in the price of the benchmark note, and the 30 year, which closed at 5.47% on Friday, took a similar hit. Borrowers face the same pressure in reverse: mortgage rates track the long end, so a 10 year near 5.2% keeps new 30 year mortgage money firmly elevated and pushes up the cost of refinancing, corporate credit, and any consumer loan priced off Treasuries.

For the broader framework, see our Fed policy coverage.

For equities the message is about discount rates rather than earnings. Growth sensitive and longer duration stocks, which carry most of their expected value in the distant future, are the most exposed to a higher risk free curve. Financials and dividend oriented defensives are comparatively better insulated, though a flattening curve still squeezes banks' lending margins at the long end. The dollar tends to firm when US yields rise relative to the rest of the world, and Friday's move added to that bias as European yields lagged their US counterparts. On the bond side, investors who had been underweight duration and positioned for exactly this repricing stand to gain. The same hawkish repricing is what pushed gold to a 52 week low in our coverage of Friday's move in gold.

What the move does to the curve, and the December catalyst

The selloff was front loaded. The 2 year Treasury closed at 4.88% on November 13, up from 4.51% a week earlier, a rise of about 37 basis points that exceeded the 10 year's move. Because the short end rose faster than the long end, the 2s10s spread flattened from roughly 35 basis points to about 27 over the week. That shape is consistent with a market repricing the near term path of Fed policy rather than a broad inflation scare at the long end, though the 30 year's own rise to 5.47% shows that term premium has room to build if supply and deficits come back into focus.

The dated catalyst is the Federal Open Market Committee meeting in December. Prediction market pricing on Kalshi currently puts the odds of a one quarter point hike at 87%, the level our October producer price coverage logged on November 13, and the same decision thread our explainer of how PPI fits the rate decision walks through. Should incoming inflation data keep the dial hawkish, that probability is the level to watch. Risks run both ways: a softer consumer price reading between now and then, or a cooling labor market, could snap yields back down as quickly as they rose. What is not in doubt is that November will end with the bond market's least comfortable stretch of the year, and the December decision now carries most of the settling cost.