Execution Based Finance: The Death of the Yield Curve
For decades, the 10-year U.S. Treasury has been hailed as the gold standard of “safe return.” It’s the benchmark — the so-called risk-free rate — against which every investment is measured. Analysts, institutions, and asset allocators orbit around it.
It anchors pricing models, justifies risk premiums, and defines what’s considered “acceptable” exposure.
But let’s ask the harder question:
What if the 10-year yield doesn’t represent safety anymore — but inefficiency?
What if tying return to time — especially ten years of it — is not only outdated…
but unnecessary?
Because in the world I operate in (first principles), return isn’t a function of duration.
It’s a function of precision and structure.
We measure performance by Cash Flow Return on Risk Rented (CRRR) —
a sharper metric that asks a better question:
How much can I extract from the capital I briefly expose — when structure is ready to move?
This flips the entire model:
We’re not earning yield — we’re triggering outcomes.
We’re not holding exposure — we’re renting risk, and releasing it the moment it loses edge.
We’re not passive — we’re precise.
So when someone says “risk-free,” what they really mean is “slow.”
They’ve confused duration with security.
But in truth, duration often just conceals inefficiency.
Because return doesn’t need time.
Not anymore.
The 10-year Treasury is a relic of a slower era —
a world where time and return were welded together by necessity.
But today, we live differently - post time.
We can identify structural tension in real time.
We can design trades around pressure and elasticity.
We can deploy capital with surgical timing — and extract cash flow without long-term exposure.
We no longer need to wait for return to mature.
So when I look at the 10-year, I don’t ask,
“How safe is this?”
I ask,
“Why wait?”
Because once you understand structure — and learn to trigger it —
you realize something profound:
Truth doesn’t need time.
And neither does return.