US 10-Year Yield Stalls at 4.85% as Strong Jobs Data Fails to Lift Rates

The US 10-year Treasury yield has fallen roughly 50 basis points from its October top near 5.36% and now sits around 4.85% — and, according to TradingView analyst Turttle_Trader, that price action is behaving oddly given the macro backdrop.

In a chart note titled "US 10Y: Something Doesn't Add Up," the analyst lays out the contradiction: employment data landed stronger than expected, and markets still assign a decent probability to another Federal Reserve hike. Yet the 10-year still can't reclaim the 5% mark. "What's weird is the timing," the note reads, pointing to weeks of selling pressure on yields despite data that would normally push them higher.

What does the technical picture show?

The longer-term structure remains bullish for yields, in Turttle_Trader's reading. The daily chart printed a golden cross — the 50-day exponential moving average crossing above the 200-day EMA — before the run higher. That signal hasn't been invalidated by the pullback, which the analyst frames as a correction within a broader upward structure rather than a reversal.

The note maps the levels in both directions. The first support zone the analyst wants to see hold is 4.80–4.85, where the yield is currently trading. Lose that band, and the daily 200 EMA comes into play around 4.65–4.68. Below there, the next zone that stands out is a double fair value gap at 4.35–4.37 — a concentration of imbalance that, in the analyst's fair-value-gap methodology, tends to attract price.

Where could yields go from here?

On the upside, the first meaningful reclaim sits at 4.97–5.00, right around the daily 50 EMA. A break back above that region would put 5.15 on the watchlist, followed by the October stress area between 5.30 and 5.36 — a zone that coincides with another double FVG and marks the peak of the recent move.

The analyst's framing is blunt: the yield is sitting between two significant imbalance zones, and which one gets tagged first will define the narrative. The top side, in the note's words, means "higher-for-longer / rates stress comes back." The bottom side means "bond rally gets another leg and the market starts pricing a softer macro setup."

That binary matters beyond the Treasury desk. The 10-year yield anchors mortgage rates, corporate borrowing costs and equity valuations, so a move back toward the 5.30s would revive the rate-stress trade that unsettled markets in October. A slide toward the 4.35 area would signal the opposite — traders pricing in a visibly softer macro picture and a Fed with room to stand pat or ease.

What's the catalyst to watch?

Turttle_Trader points to one event as the likely tiebreaker: the next CPI print. Inflation data should clarify whether the labor market's strength is feeding through to prices, and by extension whether the market's residual pricing of another Fed hike is justified — or whether the 10-year's stubborn refusal to hold above 5% has been the tell all along.

"Let's see which side gets hit first," the note concludes. Until CPI lands, the 4.80–4.85 floor and the 4.97–5.00 ceiling mark the battlefield, with the golden cross on the daily chart still technically intact and the burden of proof on bond bears to push yields back through their 50-day average.