While stronger current U.S. economic data has been supporting Treasury yields, the size and composition of any fiscal stimulus in 2017 remain big unknowns. The Republican-controlled White House and Congress are expected to enact some combination of tax cuts and infrastructure spending next year. The larger the package and the more oriented toward infrastructure it is, the more it should push nominal interest rates higher. The pronounced move in Treasury yields has priced in a good portion of future expectations as to where the move looks overdone, with many blown-out dividend growth stocks that have strong organic growth in earnings and dividend payouts now trading at hugely attractive entry points. It’s as if a Richter-scale-7.5 earthquake rippled through the many income-paying sectors all at once, taking down several terrific growth and income stocks and providing a multi-year opportunity for income investors to pounce on.

With that said, some very high profile market gurus, namely DoubleLine’s Jeff Gundlach and legendary value hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, are predicting U.S. GDP to rise to 6.0% by 2019, which would take the 10-year T-Note yield above 3.0% well before that time in anticipation of further Fed tightening. It’s just an incredible turn of events that investors are having to rapidly adjust to in an almost overnight fashion that is very unsettling for those holding tight to their long-dated bond holdings. The only solace is that all bonds mature at par, and that’s the new course for those that failed to sell.