The 10-Year Treasury yield, from the Federal Reserve
Every stock valuation starts from one number: what you could earn with almost no risk. We take it from FRED, the economic database of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the same way we take company figures from SEC EDGAR: straight from the primary source, as published.
10-Year Treasury yield
Think of it as the return on lending to the U.S. government for ten years, the closest thing to risk-free. When it rises, future profits are worth less today, so valuations tend to fall.
Source: FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (series DGS10). This product uses the FRED® API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The Treasury curve
October 2026 averages so far- 2-year
- 4.77%
- 3-year
- 4.87%
- 5-year
- 4.96%
- 10-year
- 5.17%
- 30-year
- 5.52%
Normal curve: the 10-year pays 0.40 points more than the 2-year, the usual reward for lending longer.
Source: FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (series DGS2, DGS3, DGS5, DGS10, DGS30).
What the 10-year yield is
When you buy a 10-year U.S. Treasury note you lend money to the U.S. government for ten years. The yield is the yearly return that loan pays at today's market price. Because the U.S. government is the borrower least likely to miss a payment, investors treat this yield as the risk-free rate: the return you can have without taking on business risk.
Why it matters when you value a stock
A share is worth the cash the company will produce in the future, translated into money today. The translation uses a required return, and the required return is built on top of the risk-free rate, plus extra for the risk of owning a business.
So when the 10-year yield rises, the same future profits are worth less today and valuations tend to fall, even if nothing about the company has changed. When it falls, the opposite happens. That is why the Valuation tab shows this rate right beside the Required Return you choose, and why our BackTest uses the rate that applied at the time.
How we read the number
We use FRED series DGS10, the 10-year Treasury constant maturity rate, and beside it DGS2, DGS3, DGS5 and DGS30 for the 2, 3, 5 and 30-year. We store the average of each month's daily readings, together with that month's lowest and highest daily close. The figures above are the latest month's averages, marked "so far" while the month is still running, and the range is drawn from the past twelve months. We do not adjust, smooth or estimate them.
Our sources
- SEC EDGAR, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's archive of company filings, for every fundamental figure. See our methodology.
- The Federal Reserve, through FRED at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, for the 10-year Treasury yield.
For information only, not investment advice. FRED is a registered trademark of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.