Stanley Druckenmiller says US borrowing costs are still low, predicts 10-year yield will hit 5.50%

Stanley Druckenmiller, one of the most successful macro investors of the past four decades, published an op-ed in the Financial Times arguing that US borrowing costs remain low by historical standards and that attempts to artificially suppress long-term yields are a mistake. His core prediction: the 10-year Treasury yield, currently hovering around 4.7%, is heading to 5.50%. The piece amounts to a very public breakup letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whom Druckenmiller mentored for years. The buyback controversy Druckenmiller’s critique centers on a specific policy move. On August 19, the US Treasury doubled its long-dated bond buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation. The stated goal: ease downward pressure on long-term yields and smooth out the government’s borrowing costs. Druckenmiller sees this as treating symptoms while ignoring the disease. With federal debt now exceeding $40 trillion and the deficit running near 6% of GDP at full employment, he argues the government should be confronting its spending problem rather than engineering lower rates through market intervention. The chairman of Duquesne Family Office pointed out that the 10-year yiel...