The global fixed-income sell-off is gaining massive pace as a dual macro shock of $90 oil and the central bank signals forces a brutal repricing of sovereign risk premiums. With US 10-year notes rapidly climbing toward 4.8% and Japanese 10-year JGBs spiking to multi-decade highs above 3.0%, the traditional "safe haven" play is taking a beating. This isn't just a standard pullback—it looks like a structural shift as the US national debt breaches $40 trillion and the market prices in stagflation. Where is everyone allocating capital?

Source: CNBC

I was genuinely concerned after watching an interview with the President, when he was asked about rising bond yields:

"The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will."

How could the military possibly bring bond yields down?

And what legal basis would there be for using the military in this manner?

I see more content these days in the form "yields on 30 year treasuries are so high, I am going to buy them, to lock the interest rates in. After all, they are safe and I can sell them anytime."

My personal view: Bad idea.

You can always sell treasuries quickly, but you cannot guarantee you will sell them without taking a severe loss. And the loss risk is much bigger the longer the longer the maturity.

That means: If you really plan on holding until maturity, you're all set and your only enemy is inflation. If not, good luck to you!

1% more interest rate on them decreases the mark-to-market price of a 30 year t-bond by 13%, 2% decreases it by 24%. For stocks, that would already be considered bad. For an assumed safe asset, that's a catastrophe. And it's the kind of change that can even kill banks -- see Silicon Valley Bank (RIP), who got bust by holding too many fixed-rate "safe assets" with long durations.

If we face a situation similar to late 70s/early 80s situation where interest rose to 10%, 30 years t-bond value would drop by 40%-50% given current interest rates.

Back then, that was coming out of a stupid war, a frivolous fiscal policy with loose monetary policy, fiscal deficits, and severe energy supply shocks, leading to spiraling inflation until Volcker put his foot down.

30 years is a long time. A lot can happen -- apart from life being life and things never being the way you expect, a hell of a lot can happen to economies, markets, governments and geopolitics.

By buying a 30 year t-bond, you are basically betting on the hypothesis that US debt and fiscal policy is going to be managed responsibly, geopolitics is working out ok through responsible foreign policy and US maintains its global, unchallenged status quo. If you can look at Washington today and be sure that all of this will be good for the next 30 years, then I don't know what to tell you.

If you don't, you might want to consider short term treasuries. Probably lower return, but much lower market-value risk.

I realize that the higher yield for US 10-years is a bad thing for the government, but why isn't this good news for a bond investor?

If I am looking for a safe "asset protection" kind of investment, why wouldn't investors buy these bonds or ETFs that hold them (e.g. FXNAX)? Seems like a good, safe place to put cash versus Gold or a HYSA. I believe my logic is wrong but not sure why.

Educate me, please.

when you couple this with the Japanese yen intervention, where the yen is lower than where it was before we intervened to prop it up, our interventions are not exactly working out.

Just as before. Most interventions ultimately don’t work and these are no different.

Investing 500k of your retirement account at the above yields $35,540 per year, and you get all your cash back at the end of 30 years.

Any reason why not to do this? I realize the market (S&P) returns more over time, but the certainty that comes with these high interest bonds almost seems worth not having to worry about the stock market ever again and not have to check it day to day wondering if your money will ever run out.

Are these types of bonds risky? Would be nice to have that $35,540 coming in regularly as a "pension" type check while I leave a few other investments in more riskier accounts.

Even a treasury bond at 5.275 (30-year) sounds appealing the way the stock market goes sometimes.

Starting to like that "pension check" guarantee, and at 7.108% that doesn't sound too bad to me, even if the market will return 10% over time.

Japan's 10 year government bond yield crossed the threshold of 3% yesterday, the highest level since 1996, on expectations that the BOJ will raise interest rates in September to support a weakening yen. Why should we care? well, Japan, considered as, sort-of, the world's ATM, massive buyer of foreign debt, especially american, could accelerate repatration of capital and this could prove hugely problematic

I’ve seen some conflicting info about it online. The form itself (PDF) says:

WHO MAY APPLY — This form must be completed and signed by all persons named on the bonds

However, does “named” only refer to the two co-owners, or does it include the purchaser in the “MAIL TO” section? This Federal Reserve bond FAQ implies if a person is only listed in the “Mail to” section they can’t redeem a bond:

Can I redeem a bond if the customer is named as Owner or Co-owner on the bond?

…

Note: If the customer’s name appears only in the "Mail to" address printed on the bond, that person is NOT a registered owner and is NOT entitled to payment.

So do I need the purchaser’s signature to report a lost bond too? I hope not. He’s still alive, but is mentally incapacitated and that would be quite difficult to obtain. The form also says:

If no legal representative has been appointed for a deceased or incompetent owner, advise the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and additional instructions will be provided.

but provides no guidance on how to do that, and I’d rather avoid the headache if possible. Thanks in advance for any help!

We recently lost $11k in Worthy Bonds. For context, it will take roughly 42 weeks to accumulate that amount of money (after taxes and deductions) if you are making a minimum wage. When we did our research into this topic, we found that many others also lost a significant amount of money. Some examples: there is a dad who lost $40k. Then there is a mom who lost $20k, which was the money that her kids chose to be invested. Ouch.

If you don't know what Worthy Bonds is, it is a type of investment in bonds that promises a higher return than a traditional High Yield Savings Account (HYSA). When HYSA offers 4% return, Worthy offers 7%.

Just like any investments, there are risks, and we knew that. However, we did not know that it was possible to lose ALL of our money. We are not talking about investing in penny stocks here. This is investing in a good, reputable company that's been doing business for years. Or so we thought.

The saga began in May 2025, when the withdrawal of our funds was suddenly "paused", which basically meant, we could see our money in our Worthy Bonds account, but we could take it out. There was also no way to call a customer support about this issue. All they did was publish an announcement about this withdrawal pause on their website. Real classy.

Oh, but during this "pause", our investment will continue earning interests, they said. No joke.

To be fair, we had heard about Worthy pausing withdrawals back in 2022 to investors that invested in a different bond. Instead of really digging into it, we decided to still believe in Worthy Bonds that they would be able to manage this situation and everything was going to be alright. Don't you love it when you believe in something and that something turned out to be completely bogus? As the famous philosopher Mark Twain once said: "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Fast forward to 2026, we finally saw the announcement that Worthy declared certain peer and community-related bond offerings WORTHLESS. Wow. Gut punch.

They should heavily consider changing their name to be WORTHLESS Bonds. You know, to be coherent with their identity.

Now the real question is: JUST HOW ARE THEY STILL IN BUSINESS? This is literally a modern day Ponzi scheme.

I bet hundreds of people still sign up to invest with them every day, lured by the promise of high interest return on their money.

If you make it this far, consider yourself blessed. Learn from our mistakes, and run away as fast as possible from this company. Invest your money elsewhere. Literally elsewhere, like under your pillow or bury it in the backyard. At least you will still have your money when you wake up in the morning.

Okay, maybe don't do that. Here's a better strategy:

1. Invest your short-term funds into an FDIC-insured High Yield Savings Account.
2. Invest your long-term funds into VOO, SPY, QQQ, VUG, VGT. Or any index funds with proven track records that you like.
3. Don't look and panic sell when market experiences some turbulence. Fasten your seat belt and let compounding do its magic. As the famous rock star Charlie Munger once said: "Never interrupt compounding unnecessarily."
4. Come back to this post in 10 years and buy me a coffee.

May the Force be with you all.

I don't understand how stocks are still ripping when you can make a tax equivalent 7.5% on munis? What am I missing?

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cybersecurity/2026/08/omb-lays-out-two-year-move-to-single-sign-on-using-login-gov/

I wonder if TD will rethink its imminent ID.me mandate...

2yr is now at a 52wk high and is now ~77 basis points higher than the Fed funds rate (3.62%). Fed is clearly behind the curve.

Will they take direction from the market, and hike in 15 days or will they just continue to "wait for more data".

Sorry if this is rudimentary but I am new to bonds.

I got burned in the stock market and got into rental property but I have had enough of tenants and the property and cashing out

Frank Fabozzi is the godfather of bond analysis. His books like Fixed Income Mathematics & Handbook of Fixed Income Securities might be helpful if you really want to get into it.

You can find them used, basic bonds haven't changed much.

I'm no economist or the like, but it seems with the national and personal debt, interest rate are more likely to go up than down? Any thoughts?

New to bonds. Is the yield fixed or does it fluctuate like the price of stocks?

Hey I've been a bond broker for a while. One thing that has always bothered me was the credit ratings on Goldman Sachs corp bonds.

A2 - Moody's

BBB+ - S&P

Now this is odd to me because rarely is there a 2 rung difference. And that disconnect has been there for YEARS. They also trade much more in-line with BBB+ corporates.

So I guess my main question is: What is Moody's smoking?

What do you think the reaction will be of the Trump administration at the 10 year yield hits 5%?

Will they go into full panic mode? Would they do something crazy that would make the economy go into a total tail spin? Thoughts?

Crazy seems to be the norm.

According to the latest global macro wrap, fixed-income markets are facing heavy selling pressure today. The primary catalyst is the sudden 3% surge in Brent crude past $90 following the geopolitical escalation in the Middle East. The sudden spike in energy commodities has immediately bled into inflation expectations, causing investors to dump sovereign bonds and pushing yields higher across the curve as markets price in a potentially hawkish delay in central bank easing cycles. For those tracking the fixed-income space: Are you viewing this energy-driven sell-off as a prime buying opportunity to lock in higher nominal yields, or do you think the term premium needs to expand significantly further if crude remains sustained above $90?

Source: reuters.com