Arabic version: أسواق التنبؤ تشكك في قدرة بيسنت على خفض العوائد
According to Cnbc, prediction-market traders are skeptical that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s efforts to calm rising Treasury yields will produce a dramatic decline. Bessent is seeking to cap yields with tools available to the Treasury Department, but traders on Kalshi and Polymarket expect pressure on yields to persist.
On Kalshi, traders put a 56% chance on the 10-year Treasury note yield ending 2026 at or above 4.75%. They assigned 27% odds that the yield will finish the year above 5%. The 10-year yield was trading at about 4.7% in midday trading Monday.
Kalshi’s contracts ask where the 10-year yield will trade on Dec. 31 and are resolved using U.S. Treasury data. Trading volume was low, with just over $16,500 traded. On Polymarket, speculators put 2-in-3 odds on the yield crossing 4.8% at some point in 2026, a level it had not breached during the recent bond sell-off.
Last week’s global bond sell-off came as markets assessed the risk of potentially higher inflation while the U.S.-Iran conflict remained unresolved. U.S. national debt also crossed $40 trillion last week, adding pressure on domestic yields. The Treasury Department responded by announcing it would double buybacks of U.S. debt to stabilize the bond market.
Yields initially fell after the buyback announcement before rising again in subsequent days. CNBC also reported Monday that the Treasury may consider using its $1 trillion General Account to help fund increased buybacks, according to senior officials. Yields declined after that report, but prediction-market traders were betting the decline would be temporary and that yields would resume moving higher.
