Month in Review  
In the US, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at its January meeting and is widely expected to do the same at its upcoming March 17–18 meeting. A weak February jobs report — with unemployment rising to 4.4% — had initially pointed toward rate cuts starting around mid-year. However, full-scale US and Israeli military strikes on Iran beginning February 28 have made things significantly more complicated. Iran’s closure of a key oil shipping route sent energy prices surging, and unusually, US government bonds offered no protection — their yields rose sharply as fears of higher prices took hold, with the 10-year yield climbing above 4%. The bond market is now stuck between rising prices and slowing growth. Fed’s new governor’s Kevin Warsh’s nomination to succeed Powell is advancing through the Senate, and his expected preference for tighter policy adds further upward pressure on longer-term borrowing costs.  

In Europe, the ECB left its key interest rate unchanged at 2.00% in early February — its fifth consecutive pause — flagging that global trade tensions and geopolitical risks continue to cloud the outlook. The bigger story for European bond markets has been Germany’s dramatic shift in spending: the incoming government announced a massive infrastructure fund and relaxed strict borrowing rules to allow significantly more defense spending, sending German government bond yields sharply higher in one of the largest single-day moves in decades. The ongoing conflict in Iran adds a further complication — prolonged hostilities risk keeping energy prices high, pushing inflation up across Europe and reducing the ECB’s ability to cut rates, just as Germany’s spending surge is already reshaping the region’s interest rate outlook.  

Georgian Market  
No new sovereign or corporate bond issuances were recorded in the Georgian primary market during February 2026.