Okay, unless something really drastic happens, just this one more day of bond market stories,

and then that's it. From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle. Iistall. It is Thursday, today the 22nd of May. Good as always to have you along, everybody. I'm going to oversimplify here for a minute as we get going, and I hope you'll bear with me. The stock market, as we all know, is, first of all,

not the economy. But also, stocks are volatile. They go up and down seemingly without reason, and they do that a lot, especially in times of economic uncertainty, like right now. Bonds, though, are supposed to be the serious ones, the sober ones,

steady, not prone to panic. And while we don't, and I want to make sure you hear me on this,

we do not have panic in the bond market now. There are things happening that are worth spending

some time on. And one of the big reasons that bonds are worth spending time on right

now isn't because of the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which regular listeners of this program

are well acquainted with. What's interesting right now is the long bond, the U.S. 30-year,

where the yield, the interest rate the government is paying, jumped above 5% this week. Marketplace's Henry App gets us going with the long end of the yield curve.

The longer an investor holds U.S. Treasury bonds, typically they'll want a higher interest rate because a lot can change in 10, 20, or 30 years, says Kathy Jones, Chief Fixed In income strategist at Charles Schwab, which is a marketplace

underwriter.

Those buyers, you know, definitely are looking at it as a riskier proposition.

So 10-year, yeah, there's some risk premium in there, but not nearly as much as a 30-year.

And right now, Jones says investors see the U.S. as an increasingly risky bet in the long term.

So anybody who's willing to buy, they want to get more yield to compensate them for their added risk.

The reason is a lack of confidence in the U.S.

Campbell Harvey is a professor of finance at Duke University.

The downgrade of the country's credit rating by Moody's last week hurt that confidence.

So has all the uncertainty with President Trump's trade policy.

And then there's the ballooning federal debt.

There's a perception that the U.S. is not going to get its fiscal house in order.

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