Business | Oct 7th 2023 Edition

The rout in government-bond markets deepened, as investors bet that interest rates would stay higher for longer. The yield on America’s ten-year Treasury bond neared 4.9%, the highest since 2007. In Europe the yield on Germany’s benchmark ten-year debt rose above 3% for the first time since 2011. With markets speculating that the Bank of Japan will soon raise rates, Japanese bond yields were at their highest point in a decade, pushing the central bank to make unscheduled purchases of government debt in order to maintain its policy of controlling yields. The finance ministry refused to say whether it had intervened in currency markets, after the yen reached 150 to the dollar.