10-year note sold at 5.300% on October 7; dealers took 2.5% of it
Three Treasury auctions, week of October 6, 2026: 3-year at 4.932%, 10-year at 5.300%, 30-year at 5.618%, all above September. The results, line by line.
- What happened
- The Treasury sold $39.0 billion of 10-year notes on October 7, 2026 at a high yield of 5.300%, $58.0 billion of 3-year notes on October 6 at 4.932%, and $22.0 billion of 30-year bonds on October 8 at 5.618%. Each stop-out yield was between 31 and 47 basis points above the same auction in September.
- Why
- An auction sets one yield for the whole sale. Primary dealers must bid but only keep what nobody else outbids them for; in the 10-year sale they were left with 2.54% of the competitive awards, with 80.34% going to indirect bidders.
- The numbers that matter
- 5.300%10-year note high yield, auction of October 7, 20262.54%Share of 10-year competitive awards to primary dealers5.618%30-year bond high yield, auction of October 8, 20262.7710-year bid-to-cover ratio
- Why it matters
- These three yields are the prices at which the US government borrowed for three, ten and thirty years in the week of October 6, 2026. A $1,000 face-value 10-year note cost $948.64 at the auction and pays $46.25 a year; the same money in a 30-year bond cost $928.89 and pays $51.25.
- What happens nextas we saw it on 13 Oct 2026
- The next coupon auctions on TreasuryDirect's schedule are a 20-year bond reopening on October 21, 2026 and a 5-year note on October 22, 2026, both to be announced on October 15, 2026.
Every maturity sold at a higher yield in the week of October 6 than at the same auction in September.
| 3-year, Oct 6 | 4.9% |
|---|---|
| 3-year, Sep 8 | 4.5% |
| 10-year, Oct 7 | 5.3% |
| 10-year, Sep 9 | 4.8% |
| 30-year, Oct 8 | 5.6% |
| 30-year, Sep 10 | 5.3% |
On October 7, 2026 the United States borrowed $39.0 billion for ten years at 5.300%. Twenty-eight days earlier, on September 9, it had borrowed the same amount, in the same note, at 4.834%. The note did not change. The price did: from $98.36 per $100 of face value to $94.86.
That is the single most useful fact from the week's three coupon auctions, and the rest of this piece is the detail around it. The site's explainer on how an auction works covers the mechanism — single-price format, the obligation on primary dealers to bid, the $100 non-competitive route open to anyone. This piece is about what the October results say.
Three sales, three yields
The Treasury's auction results are published by TreasuryDirect within minutes of the 1:00 PM close. The figures below are from that data service, retrieved on October 12, 2026.
| 3-year note | 10-year note | 30-year bond | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auction date | October 6, 2026 | October 7, 2026 | October 8, 2026 |
| New issue or reopening | New | Reopening | Reopening |
| Coupon | 4.875% | 4.625% | 5.125% |
| High yield | 4.932% | 5.300% | 5.618% |
| Median yield | 4.880% | 5.255% | 5.567% |
| Price per $100 | 99.842840 | 94.864261 | 92.889131 |
| Offered | $58.0 billion | $39.0 billion | $22.0 billion |
| Tendered | $153.1 billion | $109.0 billion | $56.4 billion |
| Bid-to-cover | 2.62 | 2.77 | 2.54 |
| Allotted at the high yield | 8.35% | 57.60% | 26.77% |
| Matures | October 15, 2029 | August 15, 2036 | August 15, 2056 |
Both sales were of the 4.625% note maturing August 15, 2036. On September 9, 2026 it sold at a high yield of 4.834% and a price of 98.361116. On October 7, 2026 it sold at 5.300% and 94.864261. The bid-to-cover ratio was 2.71 in September and 2.77 in October.
The 3-year note sold at 4.932% on October 6 against 4.474% on September 8, a rise of 45.8 basis points. The 30-year bond, a reopening of the 5.125% bond of August 2056, sold at 5.618% on October 8 against 5.308% on September 10, a rise of 31.0 basis points. Bid-to-cover slipped from 2.72 to 2.62 on the 3-year and from 2.61 to 2.54 on the 30-year.
The move in auction yields matches what the Treasury's own daily par yield curve shows for the same days. On October 7, 2026 the 10-year par yield was 5.28%; on October 8 the 30-year was 5.67%; on October 6 the 3-year was 4.88%. By October 9 the 10-year stood at 5.24% and the 30-year at 5.60%. For the background to a 10-year above 5%, see the site's piece on the September 15 move and the yield curve glossary entry.
Who bought it
Every results release splits the competitive awards three ways. Primary dealers are the banks and broker-dealers obliged to bid at every auction. Direct bidders are institutions that submit their own bids. Indirect bidders bid through a dealer and include foreign central banks and most fund managers. The split matters because dealers are the buyer of last resort: what they take home is what the rest of the market declined to buy at that yield.
| 3-year (Oct 6) | 10-year (Oct 7) | 30-year (Oct 8) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Competitive accepted | $56,995,537,500 | $38,665,438,000 | $21,939,603,600 |
| Primary dealers | $6,121,437,500 (10.74%) | $984,000,000 (2.54%) | $1,490,500,000 (6.79%) |
| Direct bidders | $18,047,610,000 (31.66%) | $6,618,200,000 (17.12%) | $4,583,044,100 (20.89%) |
| Indirect bidders | $32,826,490,000 (57.59%) | $31,063,238,000 (80.34%) | $15,866,059,500 (72.32%) |
| Non-competitive accepted | $649,463,700 | $334,593,700 | $60,409,100 |
| SOMA (Federal Reserve) add-on | $1,377,559,800 | $926,290,200 | $522,522,600 |
Primary dealers tendered $52,876,000,000 of the $107,734,406,000 in competitive bids, which is 49.08%. They were awarded $984,000,000, which is 2.54% of the $38,665,438,000 accepted and 1.86% of what they bid for. Indirect bidders tendered $40,006,206,000 and were awarded $31,063,238,000, so 77.65% of their bids were filled. In the single-price format, a bid is filled only if it is at or below the stop-out yield; dealers' low fill rate means most of their bids were above 5.300%.
At the September 9 reopening of the same note, dealers took 4.31% of competitive awards, direct bidders 16.51% and indirect bidders 79.18%. At the October 6 3-year sale they took 10.74%. The 30-year is the exception in the other direction: dealers took 6.79% on October 8 against 2.21% on September 10. Read plainly, the 10-year at 5.300% found enough non-dealer demand that dealers were barely needed; the 30-year at 5.618% needed them a little more than in September. The site is not drawing a conclusion about where yields go from that.
What the allotment percentage tells you
“Allotted at the high yield” is the share of bids made exactly at the stop-out yield that were filled. On October 7, 57.60% of bids at 5.300% were filled. On October 6 only 8.35% of bids at 4.932% were, which means the 3-year cleared just inside a thick layer of bids at the stop; its median yield was 4.880%, 5.2 basis points below the high.
The bid-to-cover, and what it excludes
For the 10-year: total tendered $108,995,289,900 less the SOMA add-on of $926,290,200 is $108,068,999,700; total accepted $39,926,321,900 less the same add-on is $39,000,031,700. The ratio is 2.771, which TreasuryDirect reports as 2.77. Including the add-on in both numbers would give 2.73, which is not the published figure. The same arithmetic gives 2.62 for the 3-year ($153,096,023,500 and $59,377,561,000, each less $1,377,559,800) and 2.54 for the 30-year ($56,435,875,700 and $22,522,535,300, each less $522,522,600).
The SOMA line is the Federal Reserve's System Open Market Account rolling over maturing holdings. It is not a bid; the Fed takes its allotment at the high yield on top of the public offering, which is why total accepted exceeds the amount offered. Across the three auctions the Treasury offered $119.0 billion and issued $121.83 billion. The Fed's balance sheet mechanics are covered in the September 30 balance sheet piece.
Why the same note is now cheaper
A reopening sells more of an existing security, so the coupon is fixed and only the price moves. The 4.625% note of August 2036 pays $23.125 per $1,000 every six months regardless of what a buyer paid for it. When the market demands 5.300% from a note that only promises 4.625%, the price has to fall far enough below par that the discount, recovered at maturity in 2036, makes up the difference. That is the whole of the relationship between price and yield in a bond: the coupon is a contract, the price is a negotiation.
Price 94.864261 per $100 is $948.64 per $1,000. Because the note has been accruing interest since its August 15, 2026 dated date, the buyer also pays accrued interest of $7.66644 per $1,000, which TreasuryDirect lists on the same record. Total: $948.64 + $7.67 = $956.31. The buyer gets the first full coupon of $23.125 on February 15, 2027 and $1,000 back on August 15, 2036.
Price 92.889131 is $928.89 per $1,000. The 5.125% coupon pays $51.25 a year, which is $51.25 ÷ $928.89 = 5.517% on the money paid. The remaining $71.11 per $1,000 (100 − 92.889131 = 7.110869 per $100) is returned at maturity on August 15, 2056, and the 5.618% yield to maturity counts that gain spread over 29 years and 10 months.
What it means for your money
The stop-out yields are the rates at which anyone, from a pension fund to a household with a TreasuryDirect account, bought three-, ten- and thirty-year government paper in the week of October 6, 2026. Non-competitive bidders received the same yield as the largest bank: $649,463,700 of the 3-year, $334,593,700 of the 10-year and $60,409,100 of the 30-year went that way.
- A $10,000 face-value 10-year note at the October 7 price cost $9,486.43 plus $76.66 of accrued interest, and pays $462.50 a year. The yield to maturity of 5.300% is what that income plus the $513.57 pull to par at August 15, 2036 works out to.
- The same $10,000 face in the 30-year cost $9,288.91 and pays $512.50 a year. The extra income comes with 20 more years of price exposure: a bond's price moves further for a given yield change the longer its maturity, which is why the 30-year's price is $71.11 per $1,000 below par while the 3-year's is $1.57 below.
- Against the August 2026 CPI of 3.4%, a 5.300% nominal yield is 1.84% in real terms (1.05300 ÷ 1.034 − 1) if inflation stayed at that rate for the life of the note, which it need not. The nominal-versus-real glossary entry and the breakeven inflation piece cover how to read that gap.
- The 10-year auction yield is the reference rate behind mortgage pricing. The mortgage spread piece explains why a 30-year fixed rate sits well above it rather than tracking it exactly.
None of this says whether 5.300% is a good or bad rate to lend at. It records that on October 7, 2026 the market and the Treasury agreed on it, and shows the arithmetic a buyer at that level signed up for.
What comes next
Both upcoming auctions are listed on TreasuryDirect's schedule without an offering amount as of October 12, 2026; the sizes are published with the announcements on October 15. The site's release calendar tracks the dates.
Sources
- Auction results data service: auctioned Notes, 45 days to October 12, 2026 (3-year of Oct 6 and 10-year of Oct 7, 2026, with September comparators)TreasuryDirect, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, US Treasury · Oct 12, 2026 · Primary source
- Auction results data service: auctioned Bonds, 45 days to October 12, 2026 (30-year reopening of Oct 8, 2026, with September comparators)TreasuryDirect, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, US Treasury · Oct 12, 2026 · Primary source
- Auction data service: upcoming auctionsTreasuryDirect, Bureau of the Fiscal Service, US Treasury · Oct 12, 2026 · Primary source
- Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates, October 2026US Department of the Treasury · Oct 12, 2026 · Primary source
- Consumer Price Index Summary — August 2026U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · Sep 11, 2026 · Primary source
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