Bond Yields Are Moving in Lock-Step With Term Premiums -- WSJ

By Shradha Dinesh

The "term premium" is the extra compensation investors demand to hold longer-term U.S. debt. That premiums are swinging in tandem with 10-year yields suggests the market is currently being driven by investor risk appetite rather than Federal Reserve rate expectations, analysts say.

Mounting inflationary pressures from the Middle East conflict, jitters over the fiscal deficit and a wave of corporate debt issuance tied to AI are all pushing yields higher.

"Demand for capital will be public and private, and when you put demand for capital into the trillions on these data centers, that becomes a facsimile of a sovereign bond credit," said John Blank, chief equity strategist at Zacks Investment Research. "You begin to have to seek out the same players and put the capital in a place where it's going to start to be a substitute for sovereign bond money."

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August 18, 2026 18:19 ET (22:19 GMT)