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Market Insights 09.29.26

What Is Driving Interest Rates Higher?

Higher yields may mark a return to more normal rate conditions. A balanced approach to income, duration and risk can help investors navigate competing outcomes.

Higher long-term yields appear driven more by resilient growth and real rates than by a renewed surge in inflation expectations.

Maintaining strategic duration can help investors avoid a one-way rate bet while preserving income and diversification potential.

The five- to 10-year segment may balance income and appreciation potential with less rate sensitivity than very long maturities.

Interest rates have risen sharply, prompting explanations ranging from inflation and government borrowing to geopolitical risk and AI investment. Those forces deserve attention, but our view is simpler: Markets may be rediscovering pre-Global Financial Crisis interest rate levels that are consistent with both current fundamentals and risk compensation.

That matters because Treasury yields influence mortgage rates, corporate financing, equity valuations and the value investors place on future cash flows. For investors, the key question is distilling what’s really behind today’s rising rates.

With continued economic resiliency and rates reverting to historical norms, we believe investors should resist a one-way rate bet and balance income opportunities against duration risk. Investors should focus on maintaining their strategic duration, using the middle of the yield curve (i.e., 5 to 10 years) as a practical compromise, and monitoring the signals that could distinguish normalization from a more disruptive regime shift.

The Evidence Points Toward Growth and Real Rates

Much of the increase in longer-term yields has occurred in real yields, or yields minus expected inflation. Nominal and inflation-protected 10-year yields have followed nearly identical paths, while longer-term inflation expectations have remained comparatively stable (Exhibit 1). This pattern suggests markets are placing more weight on resilient growth and the return investors require for holding longer-maturity bonds, rather than expecting inflation to remain permanently elevated.

 

EXHIBIT 1: Real Yields Are Doing the Heavy Lifting

 

The move is also global. Long-term yields have increased across several developed markets, suggesting that shared forces, such as stronger economic activity, reduced central-bank support and a broader reassessment of longer-duration debt are contributing alongside U.S.-specific risks (Exhibit 2).

 

EXHIBIT 2: Higher Yields Are a Global Reset

 

Recent history can distort the comparison. The years following the global financial crisis and pandemic featured extraordinary monetary and fiscal support that suppressed yields. Today’s rates look high beside that unusual period, but less extreme in a longer historical context. Normalization does not mean returning to one fixed average. It means investors may again require meaningful compensation for growth, inflation and the risks associated with holding longer-term assets.

Investor Playbook: Balance Income and Rate Risk

Bonds still can provide income and diversification if growth slows and inflation remains contained — a role obscured in recent years by economic resilience and heavy AI investment. Investors should prepare for a shift without making a one-way rate bet:

  • Keep duration near the portfolio’s strategic benchmark to reduce the risk of being overexposed to either a further rise or a sharp decline in yields.
  • Consider the 5- to 10-year segment as a middle ground: It may offer more income and appreciation potential than cash if rates fall, with less interest rate sensitivity than very long-maturity bonds if yields rise.
  • Add selective exposure to asset-backed securities to diversify traditional fixed-income holdings. Less commoditized segments backed by assets such as credit card receivables and auto loans may offer incremental yield and greater resilience during an economic slowdown.
  • Watch real yields, inflation expectations, credit spreads and economic growth to distinguish orderly normalization from an inflation shock or broader financial stress. If longer-term expectations stray from the Fed’s 2% target, the central bank will likely hike more aggressively. (Treasury inflation-protected securities may help mitigate inflation surprises.) Further, any credit quality deterioration, economic weakness or a push back on AI funding could disrupt markets.

The larger lesson is that with all the variables impacting markets, the current rate environment rewards adaptability over conviction. Investors do not need perfect foresight to navigate it. They need a portfolio framework that can absorb competing outcomes, respond as the evidence changes and keep short-term market narratives from displacing long-term objectives.

— With contributions from Ronit Walny

 

Meet Your Expert

Ben Gord

Head of Fundamental Investment Strategies

 

Ben Gord is Head of Fundamental Investment Strategies for Northern Trust Asset Management (NTAM). In this role, Ben oversees the High Yield, Multi-Sector, and Securitized portfolio management teams as well as the Cap Structure Team, which is comprised of the credit and equity research teams. Prior to this role, Ben oversaw portfolio implementation across investment strategies, with a focus on translating investment decisions into efficient, scalable, and risk-controlled portfolios.

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