Iggy's Journal: US Treasury Yields Just Hit Their Highest Level Since 2007. Your CPF Statement Won't Show It.

27 September 2026, Evening

Video Release

The question I kept coming back to this week wasn't why US Treasury yields reached 5.22 percent. It was why my own CPF statement barely reacted to something that size. That gap is the whole story.

The Numbers

This is a genuine global bond shock, the kind of move that reprices risk everywhere it touches. But Singapore's transmission mechanism runs differently, CPF Ordinary Account still sits at its guaranteed 2.50 percent regardless of what Washington's bond market does, and this week's 6-month T-bills yielded between 1.70 and 1.92 percent, both untouched by the headline number. The risk hasn't vanished just because your statement looks calm, it's moved somewhere else, into the balance sheets of specific REITs that actually have to refinance debt in this environment. Sector medians currently sit at 39.6 percent gearing and 3.3 times interest coverage, numbers that describe an entire sector's cushion, not any one name's.

My Personal Take

I don't want anyone reading a US Treasury headline and assuming their own portfolio absorbed the same shock, because it didn't, not directly, and not evenly. CPF's guarantee doesn't move with a foreign bond market, and neither does a T-bill you've already locked in. What actually moves is a REIT's refinancing cost the next time its debt comes due, and that's a company-by-company question, not a headline-level one. A sector median tells you the general cushion, it doesn't tell you whether the specific REIT sitting in your own portfolio is closer to the healthy end of that range or closer to the edge. I wouldn't let a dramatic number out of Washington replace an actual forensic check of the names you're holding. Full breakdown of which structural factors actually matter for refinancing risk is in today's video.

Not financial advice. Iggy's Forensic Compliance Standards apply