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Study · FIVE · 2026-10-25 · 3 min read · Rates and housing finance · Futures

Fed decision, GDP and $213 billion of note sales fill the week

Four note sales, the Fed's decision and the first third-quarter GDP reading land in five days, with the ten-year at 5.00 percent.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

PHM Pultegroup, Inc.adjacent NVR NVR, Inc.adjacent

What changed since chapter eighteen

No Treasury market has traded since chapter eighteen's reading of Friday 23 October, so its 5.00 percent ten-year yield stands as the Federal Reserve meets on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 October. ^{[1, 7]}

What is new is the week's calendar: the Treasury's offering announcements of Thursday 22 October and the schedules of the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fed officials have been in their blackout, a pause on public comment about policy, since Saturday 17 October. That date is the desk's reading of the committee's rule, which starts the blackout the second Saturday before a meeting. ^{[3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13]}

The record

On the Treasury's Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates for Friday 23 October, the three-month bill was 4.22 percent, the two-year 4.69, the five-year 4.82 and the seven-year 4.89. The ten-year was 5.00 and the thirty-year 5.33. On Friday 16 October the two-year was 4.74 and the ten-year 5.09. ^[1]

The Treasury sells $69 billion of two-year notes on Monday 26 October, $70 billion of five-year notes on Tuesday 27 and $44 billion of seven-year notes on Thursday 29. Each closes at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. A $30 billion two-year floating-rate note closes at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday 28 October, and all four are issued on Monday 2 November, $213 billion in all by the desk's arithmetic. ^{[3, 4, 5, 6, 2]}

The committee decides on Wednesday 28 October. The Fed's calendar lists the meeting at 2:00 p.m. and the chair's press conference at 2:30 p.m. The target range has been 3.75 to 4 percent since the quarter-point increase of Wednesday 16 September. ^{[7, 8]}

The minutes of that meeting say most participants judged that another increase 'would likely be appropriate by year end', with decisions depending on incoming information. Chair Kevin Warsh said in Bangkok on Friday 16 October, 'I don't prejudge meetings,' Reuters reported, giving no preview of the October decision. ^{[9, 15]}

At 8:30 a.m. on Thursday 29 October, the BEA publishes GDP (Advance Estimate), 3rd Quarter 2026 and Personal Income and Outlays, September 2026. The BLS schedule lists Consumer Expenditures, Annual 2025, at 10:00 a.m. that day, and the Employment Cost Index, Third Quarter 2026, at 8:30 a.m. on Friday 30 October. ^{[12, 13]}

Freddie Mac's survey put the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 7.32 percent as of Thursday 22 October, against 7.40 a week earlier and 6.19 a year earlier. The 15-year rate was 6.68 percent. The survey publishes each Thursday at noon Eastern. ^[14]

Who it reaches

PulteGroup (PHM) is adjacent: its third-quarter release of Thursday 22 October says 'the rapid increase in interest rates has stretched affordability even further'. Home sale revenues were $3.9 billion, 9 percent below a year earlier, the company reported. Net new orders were down 6 percent to 6,208 homes. ^[10]

NVR (NVR) is adjacent as a builder and a mortgage lender. Its release of the same day says new orders decreased 7 percent to 4,391 homes, and its cancellation rate was 21 percent against 19. Its margin was hurt by 'pricing pressure due to continued affordability challenges and weak consumer sentiment', and mortgage closed loan production was $1.38 billion, 10 percent lower, NVR reported. ^[16]

Where the sources disagree

On the Fed, PIMCO wrote that markets priced roughly an 80 percent chance of a hold the week before the meeting, and that the most likely next move is a quarter-point increase in December. Trading Economics reported that Warsh's remarks led traders to scale back bets on an October increase. The minutes name no meeting for the increase most officials expected. ^{[17, 18, 9]}

On credit, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday 21 October, not Friday 23, that companies had postponed more than $5 billion of US and European debt sales in October. Among them was a Freddie Mac sale of more than $440 million of apartment mortgage bonds. Yields on B-rated junk notes hit an 18-month high of 8.39 percent, it reported, citing Bloomberg data. ^[19]

What settles it next

In order: the two-year note on Monday 26 October, the five-year on Tuesday 27, the floating-rate note and the Fed's decision on Wednesday 28. Then the seven-year, GDP, personal income and Freddie Mac's survey on Thursday 29, and the Employment Cost Index on Friday 30 October. The blackout ends at the close of Thursday 29 October under the committee's rule. ^{[3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, 11]}

Sources

Every stock is a company; the desk grades the company behind the stock. This article describes; it does not recommend. Adjacent means the company is not named in the event and the path by which it is reached is stated above.

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