The Most Important Number of the Week Is 61.07
Bond traders aren’t panicking about higher yields, which should bring some comfort to stock investors.
September is traditionally a bad month for equities, and this one seemed to be especially vulnerable.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Bond yields are rising again, and everybody seems to be worried — again — that markets are on the precipice of a financial apocalypse — everyone except bond traders, that is.
Stocks took a nasty hit in September, with the S&P 500 Index tumbling 4.76% in its worst month since the early days of the pandemic in March 2020. Much of blame was put on the bond market. Yes, yields did jump, with those on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes jumping 0.18 percentage point in their biggest increase since this March. And, yes, the Federal Reserve did just signal that it was ready to start pulling back the punch bowl. And, yes, the Fed is not the only one turning less dovish, with central banks now on their most aggressive interest-rate hiking cycle in a decade as measured by the strategists at Deutsche Bank AG.