The yield on the U.S. 10-year Treasury jumped to its highest level since 2014 on Friday morning, underlining a wider move in bond markets caused by central banks moving away from financial crisis policies.
"We are not surprised by the movement because we believe that the Fed will raise rates by three or four times this year, more than what is currently priced by the market even after the recent sell-off," David Tan, global head of rates at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, told CNBC via email.
The yield on the 10-year was last seen at 2.656 percent at 3:59 p.m. ET, while the yield on the benchmark 30-year Treasury bond rose to 2.928 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.
While 2.63 percent is not a historically high yield for the 10-year note, the rise in long-term rates can tempt investors to shift funds into bonds instead of equities. Technical analysts believe that the threshold represents a critical level, a sign that the long spell of low yields is coming to an end.
"The pain point comes at 2.63 percent, where everybody believes that's the breakout, and everyone will be keying on that," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR. "This is a more-than-three-year range that we're attempting to break out of here."
The 10-year Treasury is considered a benchmark sovereign bond for the U.S economy, that helps price all sorts of loans and mortgages in the country. It has now hit a level not seen since September 2014, above peaks reached following the election of President Donald Trump.
Treasurys
Bond prices have been on a near 30-year run higher but have edged back in recent months with some experts predicting that the rally could now be over. Many point to a pickup inflation — which is traditionally bad for fixed income assets — and a central bank that is raising interest rates. Investors have closely monitored new data in recent weeks on the state of the U.S. economy, which is nearly at full employment.
Furthermore, some reports show that investors are also concerned over a potential shutdown of the U.S. government on Friday, if the Senate doesn't approve a bill to keep it afloat.
"The economy is growing close to 3 percent even before the stimulus from tax reform, inflation has moved away from last year's low levels, which was due to a number of one-off negative shocks, and we expect the upward cyclical pull on inflation from tight labor markets to increasingly outweigh structural downward pressure from factors such as technology," Tan added.
On Thursday, yields rose after the Labor Department said that the number of people filing for unemployment benefits dropped to its lowest level in 45 years.
According to J.P. Morgan Asset Management, the 10-year Treasury yield will edge higher throughout 2018 towards, but not above 3 percent, as central banks relax their stimulus.
—CNBC's Patti Domm contributed to this report.