When Were Real Interest Rates Last This High?
November 2008. Today's 2.43% is the latest daily print; on a monthly-average basis the series last reached that level in November 2008. Today's reading sits in the 89.9th percentile of 282 months since 2003.
The evidence
Real rates are the 10-year Treasury yield with inflation stripped out — the true cost of money after the erosion of purchasing power. Today's reading sits at the 89.9th percentile of 282 months since 2003. The full chart is on the real interest rates page.
The caveat
Why this answer is not a forecast, and never will be.
The market-based real-rate series (10-year TIPS) only begins in 2003, so “last this high” cannot see the 1970s or the Volcker years. The honest comparison window is short, and this site’s analog matching excludes real rates for exactly that reason.
High real rates squeeze slowly. Restrictiveness shows up in credit growth, earnings and hiring with long and variable lags — a high reading is a condition the economy must operate under, not a schedule of when it breaks.
The strongest argument against treating any of this as a forecast is on the market analogs page: the historical months that most closely match today’s conditions were followed by both strong and poor S&P 500 returns. Nearly identical setups have preceded opposite outcomes, and any page that tells you otherwise is selling certainty it does not have.
Related reading
More questions, answered live
The current reading against the highest value in the full history of the series.
Every monthly reading above 40 in the full CAPE history, and what followed.
The date the spread crossed back above zero, and the record of past un-inversions.
Both long-run valuation yardsticks ranked against their entire recorded history.
Computed from public data for educational purposes only. Not investment advice. Past patterns do not guarantee future results.