The Federal Reserve sets national interest rate policy. But the U.S. central bank isn’t the only major player in this arena: Bond investors also have a big influence on consumers’ borrowing costs.

Many types of consumer loans — such as mortgages and auto loans — often peg their interest rates to 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds. That means their rates move higher when 10-year Treasury yields increase, and vice versa.

Those bond yields have increased steadily over the past several months.

The 10-year Treasury yield was about 4.7% as of market close on Thursday, its highest level since January 2025.

The rates on 30-year fixed mortgages on Thursday — about 6.6% — rose to their highest since August 2025, according to weekly data posted by Freddie Mac. Those on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages increased to about 6% this week, the highest since June 2025, Freddie Mac said.

Those price pressures come amid others for households, economists said.

Average gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon again this week amid renewed tensions in the Iran war, according to data from the Energy Information Administration.

The Trump administration also imposed a slew of new tariffs on dozens of countries on Friday. These import taxes raise costs for consumers and businesses, according to economists.

Inflation across the U.S. economy has also been above policymakers’ target for more than five years, and the financial cushion provided by relatively high tax refunds this spring appears to have waned, economists said.

The rise in Treasury yields is “just another drag for households when you’ve got affordability hits elsewhere,” said Thomas Ryan, a North America economist at Capital Economics.

“And we don’t see much relief in terms of the borrowing cost side of things,” he said.

More specifically, it’s investors’ expectations for future inflation and the trajectory of Fed interest rate policy that guide bond yields up or down, experts said.

For example, if bond investors expect inflation to move higher, they will demand a higher yield on longer-term Treasury bonds to compensate for the risk of inflation eroding their future returns, experts said.

“It’s investors pricing their own reality, and that has a big knock-on effect on consumers in terms of what [rates] they can borrow at,” Ryan said.

In this case, many factors are feeding into investor anxieties about inflation, such as oil prices,…

A federal judge in Washington denied on Thursday a prosecutor’s request to erase the record of the government’s legal losses its attempt to investigate former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Chief Judge James E. Boasberg in the D.C. Circuit’s scathing order, replete with media quotes and links to YouTube clips, denied a motion by the office of U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to vacate his earlier rulings that had gone against Pirro.

The latest development caps a monthslong legal saga that saw Boasberg halt aspects of an investigation by Pirro into the Fed. Boasberg in March quashed a pair of subpoenas Pirro issued because, he ruled, Pirro’s effort was intended at least in part to “harass and pressure Powell” on behalf of the president, who wanted lower interest rates.

Pirro in April agreed to close the investigation of Powell under pressure from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Tillis dropped a Senate blockade of the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to replace Powell as leader of the Fed. Warsh was confirmed in May and will chair his first meeting of the Fed’s rate-setting committee next week.

Powell stepped down from the Fed chair as required by law but opted to retain his separate seat on the Fed’s board. He wanted to ensure that the legal threat to the Fed had truly ended, even after Pirro said she had dropped the investigation.

Boasberg in a scathing order Thursday appeared sympathetic to Powell’s perspective that the legal threat to the Fed may not truly have ended with Pirro’s decision to drop the investigation. Pirro said she could reopen the investigation if she chose.

“It sounds like you’re going to keep trying to find out more,” CNN host Jake Tapper said to Pirro in an interview. “Pirro essentially confirmed that interpretation,” Boasberg wrote.

Despite prosecutors’ attempts to confine the arguments to the courtroom, Boasberg drew on evidence of what Pirro and President Donald Trump had said in the press. Boasberg’s orders were simply “using the President’s explicit statements as evidence of what his deputies understood that he wanted,” he wrote.

Boasberg wrote that Pirro’s legal rationale in the wake of his decision had “vacillated,” first promising to appeal, and then switching to a “curious” strategy of asking him to vacate his earlier rulings now that the investigation was over. Boasberg’s latest order denied that motion to vacate.

Boasberg’s initial ruling had found that although a prosecutor ought generally to be allowed to issue grand jury subpoenas on minimal suspicion, evidence that those subpoenas might be part of a campaign of political harassment raised the bar for allowing an investigation to proceed. Pirro’s motion to vacate…

As Iran’s future hangs in the balance as civil unrest gathers steam, its powerful ally Russia can do little but watch and wait as the U.S. ponders its next move against the Islamic Republic.

U.S. President Donald Trump has not ruled out using military strikes against the conservative religious regime that has ruled Iran since 1979. On Tuesday, he repeated that threat, warning the U.S. would take “very strong action” if Iran executed arrested protestors. Trump has already said any country doing business with Iran would be hit with a 25% tariff.

Russia will be focused on how events unfold in Iran given Tehran’s position as a key strategic, military, economic and trade partner for Moscow in the Middle East.

The prospect of another ally falling in the Middle East will be a worrying one for Moscow, particularly after it has seen its alliances with Venezuela, Syria, and the Caucasus upended recently, denting its power and influence abroad.

“Moscow sees the potential loss of Iran as a much more significant risk to both its regional national posture than it saw the loss of Syria, Venezuela, or arguably its influence in Armenia over the last few years,” Max Hess, founder of political risk consultancy Enmetena Advisory, told CNBC Tuesday.

“The reason for this is because Iran is itself a regional power projector, which offers Russia a platform to build alliances and expand its own influence,” he said.

Mario Bikarski, senior analyst of Europe and Central Asia at Verisk Maplecroft, agreed that any regime collapse would be worrying for Moscow as it would represent another loss of power and influence, but could also unleash wider regional instability in the Caucasus region that separates Russia and Iran.

“There have been Iranian protests in the past, and Russia has always looked at them but never reacted, because they probably hoped that the Iranian regime will be able to withstand the pressure. But [this time] the pressure has been building up, and it’s not only domestic, it’s also external,” he told CNBC Tuesday.

“Should the Iranian regime fall, Russia would probably have to scramble and find new ways to ensure that instability does not reach its borders, and also that it’s maintaining some influence in the region,” he said.

If a leadership vacuum emerged in Iran and rival factions vied for power, leading to further violence and unrest, that would mean “big security trouble for Russia and for a lot of other countries in the region,” Bikarski warned.

Drug pricing has emerged as a key topic to watch for pharmaceutical companies and investors in 2025. As President Donald Trump pushes for lower medicine prices for Americans, the sector is facing additional pricing pressure from a Biden-era law called the Inflation Reduction Act.

The IRA, voted into law in 2022, allows the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to negotiate prices for a number of drugs each year for patients in Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors. It’s now making waves also across the Atlantic.

While these changes are taking place firmly in the U.S., pharmaceutical companies across the globe are finding themselves increasingly exposed to the American market.

A number of European companies have announced sizeable U.S. investments to placate Trump and his aggressive tariff agenda, while AstraZeneca is moving toward another direct listing on the NYSE to tap into the deeper pockets of U.S. capital markets. Meanwhile, Novo Nordisk has cited a failure to deal with changes in the U.S. market as part of the reason for recent leadership changes.

Late Tuesday, the CMS announced newly negotiated prices for 15 blockbuster drugs from 2027, including Novo Nordisk’s mega bestseller Ozempic which will see a 71% discount to its list price.

Among other European pharma giants, AstraZeneca’s cancer drug Calquence will face a 40% discount, while GSK‘s lung disease medicines Trelegy and Breo with 73% and 83% discount, respectively.

Overall, discounts ranged between 38% and 85%, with estimated savings of about $8.5 billion, 36% lower than recent annual spending.

“Whether through the Inflation Reduction Act or President Trump’s Most Favored Nation policy, this is what serious, fair, and disciplined negotiation looks like,” said CMS Deputy Administrator Chris Klomp in a statement.

A GSK spokesperson said they were pleased with the agreement. “We strongly believe in the value of both Trelegy and Breo and remain committed to working with CMS.”

Novo, on the other hand, was critical. “We continue to have serious concerns about the Inflation Reduction Act’s impact on patients and remain opposed to government price setting,” a spokesperson told CNBC in emailed comments. “We have seen that government price setting has not translated to lower out-of-pocket costs for patients and can lead to a loss of coverage for medications and higher insurance premiums,” they added.