France Paid More Than America for Ten-Year Money. Germany's Yield Went Down.
The French ten-year went above 5 per cent on 22 October for the first time since 2002 and four readers put it between 5.076 and 5.13 per cent.
The American ten-year fell to 4.96, down 17 basis points, the largest one-day drop since March 2023 on one reader. So France borrowed for ten years 11.6 to 17.7 basis points more dearly than the United States - no combination of the eight published figures makes France cheaper - which one reader says had not happened since 2013. The spread is the number people quote and it hides the mechanism. One tracker publishes both legs: since 11 September the French yield rose 72.0 basis points and the German yield FELL 13.0, which accounts for 85.0 of the 84.8 basis points the spread moved, a 0.2 basis point residual. That is 84.9 per cent France and 15.3 per cent Germany - not a euro-area repricing but France repricing while Germany improves. And widest since 2011 flatters it: 174.6 is 50.5 basis points below the 225.1 peak of November 2011, 77.6 per cent of it. Separately the Treasury sold five-year TIPS at a 2.367 per cent real yield against a 2.36 when-issued - a 0.7 basis point tail by our own subtraction, the second in two days - on a 2.41 cover, the weakest for the term since April 2025, in the middle of the biggest bond rally in three and a half years. A rally that brings no bid to the primary market is a rally in duration people already own. Moody's reviews France today.