Post: #1

When, in financial news, they talk about the 10-yr note or 30-yr bond date, is this in regard to a specific issue/maturity date? I think they issue 30-yr bonds every month, not sure about 10-yr notes off the top of my head.

Post: #2

When they talk about these yields, they are talking about what the most recent issued is trading at for yield.

One of the reasons people look at the current, today rate for a 10 year bond or a 30 year bond, is that the 10 year bonds are an indication of what commercial borrowing rates would be marked up from. Many calculations of stock values also use the 10 year rate. The 30 year bond is an indication of what mortgages should be marked up from.

By marked up from, I mean that one usually would consider the best borrower, US Government, get the 10 year or 30 year rate. Everyone else pays a higher rate depending on the level of higher risk of borrowing than being the US Government.

The reason people use the ten year bond instead of the 30 year bond for many business calculations are that many business environments change too much over 30 years for anyone to lend to them for that long. As an example, the computer industry. Ten years ago was 2008 and the large companies like Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft are sort of the same as they are now as in do you expect them to be still around to make the payment; while thirty years ago, 1988, Google didn't exist, Apple, Dell, Microsoft were much smaller than they are now, and there was no internet and few cell phones, also no smart phones.

Post: #3

Evan's correct.

When people talk about the "X year yield" they mean the yield for a government security issued now.

There's two main terms. When they talk about government securities they're most often referring to the "Yield to Maturity", which is the Net Present Value (google the term if you don't know) of a bond with that level of maturity trading today. This is NOT just a calculation of the interest rate it pays, it's a measure of the total time-adjusted return of your purchase price (cash outlay or the "present value"), interest payments in (the "payment" part of the equation) and the "face value" or "principal" which is the amount of cash that you're supposed to get when it matures (or "future value").

Overview of the terminology here: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/in...yields.asp

That website is a good one-stop shop for your questions about finance terminology and concepts.