The long bond has been completely repriced.
On March 9, 2020, the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield closed at 0.99%, according to FRED data from the Federal Reserve. That was the panic-low world: investors were rushing into Treasuries, the Fed was moving toward emergency policy, and long-duration assets were being valued against historically low discount rates.
Fast forward to September 2026, and the setup looks very different. The latest official Treasury close shown in the chart is 5.40% on September 23, 2026, while live trading on September 24 pushed the 30-year yield to roughly 5.44%, its highest level since 2004.
The investing signal is not just that rates are higher. It is that the long-term risk-free rate has moved from below 1% to above 5%, which changes the math for everything with duration: bonds, housing, utilities, infrastructure, growth stocks, private assets, and the federal government's interest bill.
The caveat is that the chart uses official close data for the plotted series, while the 5.44% level is a live-market hook reported during trading. The broad point is still the same: the era of sub-1% long bonds is gone, at least for now.