Treasury Yields Hold Near Recent Levels in Asian Trade Ahead of Midterms and Refunding

The two-year Treasury yield rose 1.5 basis points to 4.595% in Asian trade on November 2, 2026, according to The Wall Street Journal, while the 10-year yield fell 0.4 basis point to 4.924%. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point, so both moves were small. A Treasury yield is the annual return an investor earns for lending money to the U.S. government, and it moves in the opposite direction to the bond's price.

Reuters put the 10-year yield at 4.931% on the same day, in its global markets coverage. The two 10-year prints differ by 0.7 basis point, and both show the same direction for the session: little change.

The gap between the 10-year and two-year yields, the closely watched 2s10s spread, sits at roughly 33 basis points. That is a positively sloped curve, with longer maturities paying more than short ones.

In my view, the shape of that curve is the number worth tracking, not any single print. A single session's quote can wander, but the difference between short and long rates tells you what the bond market thinks about borrowing over different horizons.

The 10-year has moved a good deal in the past week. CNBC reported that on October 27 the benchmark rose less than 1 basis point to 4.995%, while the 30-year bond rose less than 1 basis point to 5.309%. On October 29, the 10-year fell 10.6 basis points to 4.939% after GDP and inflation data, according to Reuters. On October 30, CNBC reported that yields declined as investors moved into safe havens amid a technology-led sell-off in equities.

In my view, a 10.6 basis point move in one session is large for the benchmark, and it is a reminder that a quiet Asian-session print can hide a volatile week.

Equity futures were quieter on November 2. Nasdaq futures bounced modestly at the start of Asian trading, Reuters reported. Bloomberg's Asia-session video for the same date, titled "The Asia Trade 11-2-2026," framed regional traders as weighing the tech selloff against the U.S. midterm elections, per Bloomberg.

The U.S. Treasury is due to announce its quarterly refunding in the week starting November 2, Reuters reported. Refunding is the process by which the Treasury sets the sizes and mix of its note and bond auctions to roll over maturing debt and finance new borrowing.

In my view, after a 10-basis-point move in one day, the auction sizes and any guidance on issuance mix will matter more to term premium, the extra yield investors demand for holding longer bonds, than the Asian-session prints do. Asian-session quotes are thin, and a fraction of a basis point at that hour tells a trader very little about where the close will land.

For households, the 10-year is the reference point behind fixed-rate mortgages and many longer-term corporate borrowing costs, so a move of this size can feed into quoted loan rates within days. The two-year is more closely tied to expectations for short-term policy rates, which matters for adjustable-rate borrowing and for yields on short-dated savings products.

Neither benchmark moves in a straight line on a headline. In my view, the midterms and the refunding are both event risks that can push yields in either direction, and it would be a mistake to read the first two days of the week as a forecast for the rest of it.

The market has steadied after a volatile stretch, with the 10-year still near 4.93% and the curve positively sloped. What the next refunding announcement and the midterm results do to those levels is not yet known.