Why Bond Yields Are Spiking Across G7 Nations

Thirty-year US Treasury yields just hit their highest levels since 2023. Japan's 30-year bond is at highs not seen in its 27-year history. UK yields are at 1998 levels. The average 10-year yield across all G7 countries is now at its highest point since 2004, according to Apollo Management.

This isn't some niche corner of finance. When government bond yields spike like this, borrowing costs rise across the board. Mortgages get more expensive. Business loans cost more. Credit card rates climb. And if you're holding stocks or other risk assets, the shift in yields changes the math on everything.

So what's driving this selloff in sovereign debt? There are five main factors pushing yields higher, and they're all happening at once.

Bonds pay a fixed interest rate. If you buy a 10-year Treasury today, you're locking in that yield for the next decade. Inflation makes those future payments worth less in real terms, which makes bonds less attractive.

Inflation was already sticky coming into 2025, but the US-Iran conflict added fuel to the fire. Brent crude is trading at $110 a barrel because the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil chokepoint, has been effectively closed for almost three months. Higher oil prices ripple through the entire economy. Gas at the pump costs more. Companies face higher production costs and pass them on. Consumer prices and producer prices in the US both jumped at the fastest pace in years.

The AI boom could eventually help by boosting productivity, but right now it's creating its own inflationary pressure. Demand for semiconductor chips is pushing their prices up, a phenomenon some are calling "chipflation." HP and Nintendo have both complained publicly about higher chip costs. Tech companies are pouring capital into data centers, which creates price-inelastic demand for commodities and puts strain on power grids, as Ed Yardeni pointed out.

If you're holding a bond that pays 4% and inflation is running at 3.5%, your real return is tiny. And if inflation keeps climbing, that real return could go negative. That's why investors are selling.

Politicians from Tokyo to Washington are promising more spending or lower taxes, and they're facing pressure from increasingly populist voters. But most of these countries already borrowed heavily during the pandemic, so the question now is: how much higher can debt levels go before it becomes a problem?

The IMF estimates that global public debt will hit 100% of GDP by 2029, up from 95% last year. In the US, the Congressional Budget Office projects that President Trump's tax cuts will push debt to 120% of GDP within a decade, which would surpass World War II levels.

Every time a government needs to fund more spending or offset lower tax revenue, it issues more debt. And investors who are worried about stretched public finances start demanding higher yields to compensate for the risk. Yardeni famously called these trades the work of "bond vigilantes," traders who force governments to change course by selling bonds and pushing yields higher.

Japan's Prime Minister just called for an extra budget to deal with rising commodity prices. In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing a potential leadership challenge that could lead to looser fiscal policy. More spending means more bond issuance, and the market is pricing that in now.

Investors are betting that central banks are losing the inflation fight, which means rates might stay elevated for longer than expected. Higher policy rates make the yields on existing bonds look less attractive, so bond prices fall and yields rise.

In the US, traders now see a rate increase by March 2027. That's a complete reversal from late February, when they were expecting two quarter-point cuts in 2026 and for incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh to follow Trump's calls for easier policy. The Fed meets June 17 with growing pressure to drop its bias toward easing. The Bank of Japan meets a day earlier, and calls to hike are getting louder there too.

And here's another factor: central banks bought massive amounts of sovereign debt during the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic to keep yields low and stimulate economies. But now they've pulled back or even started selling bonds. That removes a huge source of demand from the market, which puts upward pressure on yields.

Inflation isn't just a supply-side story. It's also a byproduct of demand. When economies grow, people buy more stuff, companies hire more workers, and workers ask for higher wages. All of that pushes prices up.

Despite the US-Iran conflict, the US economy is showing momentum. Recent data points to the strongest two-month gain in jobs since 2024. Citigroup's gauge of whether economic data is beating expectations has climbed off its April 2026 low.

Europe is dealing with a different problem: stagflation. Growth is weak but inflation is high, which is arguably the worst combination for bonds. You don't get the benefit of rising growth to offset inflation, and you still get the inflation that erodes bond returns.

If you're trying to understand how market structure works in an environment like this, the bond market is often the first place stress shows up. Equities can keep rallying on momentum for a while, but bonds tend to price in macro risk faster.

Beyond the immediate drivers, there are longer-term trends that could keep inflation and yields elevated for years.

Economists at Allianz identified what they call the "five Ds" affecting the bond market: debt, digitalization, demographics, deglobalization, and decarbonization.

Demographics: Aging populations mean higher wage pressures as labor forces shrink and higher healthcare costs as people live longer.

Deglobalization: Trade wars and reshoring production closer to home increase supply chain costs. Moving manufacturing from low-cost countries back to the US or Europe isn't cheap.

Decarbonization: The transition to a green economy requires massive infrastructure spending and introduces new costs through carbon pricing.

These aren't short-term shocks. They're structural shifts that change the baseline for inflation over the next decade or more. If inflation stays persistently higher than the 2010s average, bond yields will have to stay higher too.

Bond yields don't move in isolation. When yields spike, it changes the math on everything else.

Stocks were setting records earlier this year, but they're starting to wobble now. Higher yields mean the risk-free rate goes up, which makes equities less attractive on a relative basis. Borrowing costs rise for companies, which squeezes profit margins. And if consumers are paying more for mortgages and credit cards, they have less to spend on other stuff.

Apollo's Torsten Slok told clients that "rates will stay higher for longer and investors should plan accordingly." That's the key takeaway. If you're building positions assuming rates will drop back to 2020 levels anytime soon, you're probably working with the wrong baseline.

For traders, the question is how to navigate a regime where inflation stays sticky, yields stay elevated, and central banks can't just cut rates to fix everything. That's a different environment than the one we had for most of the 2010s, and it requires different tools.

If you want to understand how behavioral biases play into decision-making in volatile environments like this, the behavioral gap between analysis and execution is worth reading. It's one thing to intellectually understand that yields are rising. It's another thing to actually adjust your positions when the market is moving fast.