Nivéstor

macro · Sunday, May 10, 2026 · 4 min

Jobless claims at 200k, futures price 93% no Fed cut: stand aside on TLT at $86.08

Weekly jobless claims hit 200,000, near the lowest of the year, and rate-decision futures now price a 93.4% chance the Fed does nothing at the June 17 meeting[^1]. Long bonds have no fuel to rally. Don't buy TLT yet.

$TLT$IEF$SHY$ARE
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WATCH
$TLT
Pay around $86.08
No max price (no trade)
No stop (you are not in)
0% — sit this one out
Watching $83.30

Watch $83.30: 52-week low, the level where buyers stepped in last; a re-test there with weaker jobs data is the buy setup

Watch $88.18: 200-day moving average; reclaiming this would confirm bonds are back in an uptrend

Why this size: No position. The trigger to buy TLT is either weekly jobless claims breaking above 250,000 (a real crack in the labor market) or the 10-year Treasury yield dropping below 4.20% on its own. Neither has happened. Risk 0% until one of those flips.

When you'd hold this: 4 to 8 weeks, around Fed rate-setting meeting on June 17, 38 days from today

Two pieces of data landed this week that, together, tell you to leave long bonds alone for now. The weekly jobless claims report came in at 200,000 people filing for unemployment, near the lowest reading of the year. At the same time, the futures market that bets on what the Fed will do next is now pricing a 93.4% chance the Fed sits on its hands at the June 17 meeting1. If you were waiting for falling rates to lift the bond fund TLT, the wait just got longer.

What just happened

First: the labor market refuses to break. Last week 200,000 Americans filed for unemployment for the first time. The week before, it was 190,000. For context, in a slowdown that number runs 250,000 to 300,000. We are nowhere near that. Companies are not laying people off in any size that shows up in this report.

Second: the betting market for Fed rate decisions just shifted hard against a June cut. A futures contract called Fed Funds futures, which traders use to bet on what the Fed will do, is now priced as if there is a 93.4% chance the Fed leaves rates exactly where they are at its June 17 meeting1. A month ago, the same contract was pricing real odds of a cut. Those odds collapsed.

Third: long-dated Treasury bonds have been quietly grinding lower for weeks. TLT, the exchange-traded fund (a basket of long Treasury bonds you can buy as one ticker) sits at $86.08, well below where it traded a year ago, and it just made another lower low last week.

So what

Here is the chain. The Fed cuts rates when the economy is weakening, which usually shows up first in people losing jobs and filing for unemployment. People are not filing for unemployment, so the economy is not visibly weakening. So the Fed has no reason to cut. The futures market figured this out, which is why the no-cut probability jumped above 90%. Long-dated bonds like TLT only rally when investors believe rates are going to fall meaningfully. With rate cuts pushed off, there is no buyer for TLT right now.

Meanwhile, insiders at the lab-space landlord ARE quietly bought $2.6 million of their own stock2, and the stock popped almost 12% today. Real-estate insiders buy when they believe rates will fall and lift property values. That is a one-company bet against the rates view the futures market just doubled down on. One side of that trade is going to be wrong. Right now the data says the futures market is right and the REIT insiders are early.

What to do about it

Don't buy TLT today. The thing that would make TLT worth buying is either (a) weekly jobless claims breaking above 250,000, which would tell you the labor market is finally cracking and the Fed will have to cut, or (b) the 10-year Treasury yield dropping below 4.20% on its own. Neither is happening. Set an alert at $83.30 on TLT, which is the 52-week low. If TLT gets there with weaker jobs data, that is a real buy setup. Until then, your money is better off in cash earning the short-term yield. The risk if you ignore this and buy TLT now is simple: bonds keep grinding lower for another month or two while a stronger labor market pushes the next Fed cut from June to September.

What we got right (and wrong) before

Two days ago we recommended buying gold miners (GDX at $94.59) on the same theme that real-rate expectations were softening. That call is the long-side version of this one: gold rallies when rate cuts come, bonds rally when rate cuts come, but the path to bonds rallying needs a labor-market crack that has not arrived. Gold is rallying ahead of bonds because gold also benefits from currency-debasement fears, and bonds do not. Both can be right; the order matters.

For the nerds

FRED ICSA: 200,000 (week ending 2026-05-02), down from 215,000 three weeks ago. FRED DGS10: 4.41% (2026-05-07). FRED DGS2: 3.92% (2026-05-07). FRED T10Y2Y: 0.48 (2026-05-08), stable in a 0.48 to 0.57 range for the past 30 trading days. FRED DFF: 3.63% (2026-05-07). FRED UNRATE: 4.3% (April 2026). CME FedWatch June 17 meeting: 93.4% no change, 6.6% ease, 0.0% hike1. TLT technicals: RSI 40.12 (weakening, approaching oversold), MACD histogram -0.001 (just-flipped bearish), price below both 50-day ($86.92) and 200-day ($88.18) moving averages, classified as downtrend. Cross-domain check: ARE +11.77% today on the back of an insider cluster buy of $2.6M2, setting up a real-asset / duration divergence with TLT for the next 38 days into the Fed meeting.

Not financial advice. Do your own research.

What we passed on

  • $IEFPENDING-0.3% since pass

    The 7 to 10 year Treasury fund. Same story as long bonds, just less leveraged to rate cuts. No reason to own it ahead of a Fed that won't cut.

  • $SHYPENDING0.0% since pass

    Short-term Treasuries. Already pinned near the 52-week high, the easy money was already made when rates peaked last year.

  • $AREPENDING+7.4% since pass

    REIT insiders cluster-bought $2.6M2 and the stock popped 11.77% today. Chasing after a one-day pop into a property market with mortgage rates above 7% is a coin flip, not a trade.