当下推升长端的关键数字与趋势是：通膨看似稳在约 3%，但联准会已开始转向宽松（降息并结束量化紧缩，且 12 月 12 日起买入短券）。市场担心关税影响尚未完全反映、压通膨决心不足；同时国会对降债务更缺乏承诺，意味未来发债量更大、债券价格更容易下跌，投资人因此要求更高的风险补偿，推高长天期殖利率。
即使未来联准会更强硬、财政也更节制，长端仍可能回到较高的长期均值：殖利率不像股票趋势性上升，而是围绕一个长期平均波动，且该平均值高于 2010 年代。结构性因素（资本生产力、社会对未来的折现、人口老化效应的不确定性）也支撑较高的长端水准；高 10 年期会让房贷与债务利息更贵，并提高企业再融资时出现「信用事件」的风险，促使政策端考虑 QE 或以监管推动的金融压抑，但扭曲风险价格往往弊大于利。
The piece argues that more Fed cuts in 2026 are likely, but they will do little to push down long-term rates, especially the 10-year Treasury; historically, long yields often rise after cuts. The reason is segmentation by maturity: the Fed has the most sway under about five years, while longer maturities are driven by expected inflation, inflation risk, and a term premium.
Today’s upward pressure is numerical and concrete: inflation looks steady near 3%, yet the Fed is already easing (cutting rates and ending quantitative tightening, with bill purchases starting Dec. 12). Markets worry tariffs are not fully felt and commitment to lower inflation further is weak; meanwhile Congress shows even less commitment to reduce debt, implying more future issuance, lower bond prices, and a higher risk premium demanded by investors.
Even with tougher anti-inflation policy and sudden fiscal discipline, long rates can remain higher because yields mean-revert around a long-run average that exceeds the 2010s. Structural factors—capital productivity, society’s discounting of the future, and uncertain demographic effects—anchor that average; a stubbornly high 10-year keeps mortgages and debt service expensive and raises “credit event” risk as firms refinance. That may invite renewed QE or regulatory “financial repression,” but manipulating the price of risk in bonds tends to create more problems than it solves.
