Compare that with the average annual real (inflation - adjusted) increase in the 10 -
year Treasury yield between January 1962 and November 2016 of 2.40 %.1
Not exact matches
«The spread
between the 2 -
year and 10 -
year Treasury is now the tightest it's been since 2007,» said Rob Morgan, chief investment officer at Sethi: «The flattening
yield curve in 2007 was a harbinger of the Great Recession of 2008.
And now the
yield curve is threatening to invert again, with the spread
between 10 - and two -
year Treasury note
yields now at its lowest level since that fateful
year.
One of the best coincident and real - time indicators of bursting bubbles and recessions is the
yield spread
between US high -
yield corporate bonds and the 10 -
year US
Treasury.
Ten -
year Treasury yields are expected to roam
between today's 2.5 % and 3 % or so this
year, mitigating price declines.
A typical measure of credit conditions are «spreads» — the difference
between the
yield of 10 -
year U.S.
Treasury bonds and that of riskier bonds, such as high
yield.
Treasury bond prices rallied and
yields on the 10 -
year fell to
between 2.8 % and 2.85 % following the release of benign inflation data and weaker - than - expected retail sales figures.
1: Widening credit spreads: An increase over the past 6 months in either the spread
between commercial paper and 3 - month
Treasury yields, or
between the Dow Corporate Bond Index
yield and 10 -
year Treasury yields.
That decline in
yields chipped away at the spread
between 2 -
year Treasuries US2YT = RR, which
yield 2.282 percent, and longer - term bonds.
Low or negative real interest rates, measured by the difference
between the 3 - month
Treasury bill
yield and the
year - over-
year rate of CPI inflation.
[Note - Applying this alternate criteria also relaxes the
yield curve criterion (2) so that any difference of less than 3.1 %
between the 10 -
year Treasury yield and the 3 - month
Treasury bill
yield is actually sufficient to complete the syndrome].
The
yield curve is said to «flatten» when the difference
between the two -
year Treasury yield and 10 -
year Treasury yield starts to tighten.
The
yield on the 10
year Treasury roughly doubled
between May of last
year and January of 2014 and has now slid back 50 basis points this
year — which may not sound like a lot — but on a percentage basis is rather substantial.
While rates remained constrained, I had expected the
yield on the 10 -
year Treasury note to end the
year between 2.5 percent and 2.75 percent, not 2.25 percent.
This is the difference
between the 5 -
year nominal
treasury yield and the 5 -
year TIPs
yield and is suppose to reflect
treasury market's forecast for the average annual inflation rate over the next five
years.
The
yield curve is the flattest it has been in 10
years, meaning that the spread
between 10 - and two -
year Treasury yields is around 50 basis points, leaving the fed little room to manoeuvre.
Meanwhile, one measure of the
yield curve, the difference
between the 10 -
Year Treasury Note rate and the 3 - month
Treasury Bill rate, fell by 7 basis points.
Another approach to analyzing the 10 -
Year Treasury Note rate is to decompose it into its real
yield, taken from the rate on 10 -
Year Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS), and inflation compensation, the residential
between the 10 -
Year Treasury Note rate and the 10 -
Year TIPS.
That's what to watch for now - things like the difference
between commercial paper
yields and
Treasury bills, the difference
between Moody's BAA and AAA
yields, the difference
between the Dow Jones Corporate Bond Index
yield and 10 -
year Treasury yields, and so forth.
The gap
between the 2 -
year and 10 -
year Treasury notes, often considered the heart of the
yield curve, held at 46.8 basis points on Thursday.
This modestly exceeds the
yield available on a 10 -
year Treasury, but by a small margin that - outside the late 1990's bubble period - has previously been seen only during the two -
year period approaching the 1929 peak,
between 1968 - 1972 (which was finally cleared by the 73 - 74 market plunge), and briefly in 1987, before the crash of that
year.
The orange line is the implied inflation rate, based on the difference
between the 10 -
year nominal
Treasury yield and the
yield on 10 -
year inflation - protected
Treasuries.
The difference in
yield between two -
year and 10 -
year Treasuries recently fell below 50 basis points (source: Bloomberg).
Inflation expectations, as measured by the difference
between yields on 10 -
year nominal
Treasury notes and
Treasury inflation protected securities (Tips), have risen to 2.25 per cent from a low of around 2.10 a month ago.
With a 2.00 % Fed Funds rate, the 2 -
year Treasury would be expected to
yield between 2.25 % and 2.50 %.
The 10 -
year Treasury yield would be expected to be
between 2.75 % and 3.00 %.
When the spread
between the 90 - day and 10 -
year Treasury yield is 121 basis points or more, the stock market does much better than when it's 120 basis points or less.
This is consistent with BlackRock's view and confirms our caution on short - term rates, a risk that was on display last week as two -
year Treasury yields surged
between Wednesday and Friday, ending the week at 0.65 %.
The current US
Treasury yield curve in
between the 5 -
year and 10 -
year maturities is today just 15 bps.
That's why there's a close (but far from perfect) relationship
between yields on 10 -
year Treasury bonds and rates on new fixed - rate mortgages (FRMs).
The spread
between the
yields on the 2 -
year Treasury note and the 10 -
year Treasury note narrowed by 70 basis points from 125 points at the start of 2017 to just 55 points at the end of 2017.
Working in the other direction, the investment of the US dollar proceeds of foreign exchange intervention by Asian central banks was supportive of the US
Treasury market, as was the very wide spread
between 10 -
year Treasury yields and the Fed funds rate, particularly in light of the Fed's reaffirmation of its intention to maintain an accommodative monetary policy stance (Table 5, Graph 12).
Specifically, the «Fed Model» — the notion that equity earnings
yields and 10 -
year Treasury yields should move in tandem — is an artifact restricted to the period
between 1980 and 1997, when both equity and bond
yields fell in virtually one - for - one lock - step — bond
yields because of disinflation, and equity
yields because of what was actually a move from extreme secular undervaluation to extreme secular overvaluation.
That said, credit spreads have popped wider in the past 2 weeks as measured by the spread
between Moody's BAA
yields and 10 -
year Treasuries, by 6 - month commercial paper
yields versus 6 - month T - bills, and other spreads.
The above chart showcases the difference
between the 10 -
year and the 2 -
year Treasury yields.
The correlation
between the Fed's five -
year forward breakeven rates and 10 -
year Treasury yields recently has been fairly strong, and with breakeven rates increasing, we would expect to see a corresponding rise in interest rates.
To investigate, we define the credit spread as the difference in
yields between and Moody's seasoned Baa corporate bonds and 10 -
year Treasury notes (T - note).
He defines this ERP as the retrospective difference in 10 -
year yield between the broad U.S. stock market and the 10 -
year yield on safe assets such as U.S.
Treasury bills or intermediate - term U.S.
Treasury notes.
Importantly, the relationship is nearly as bad even if these «equity premiums» are compared with the difference
between the realized 10 -
year S&P 500 total return and the 10 -
year Treasury yield (to get a true «excess» return).
The credit spread is the difference in
yields between the 10 -
year Treasury note and Moody's AAA seasoned corporate bonds.
If one excludes the 1980 - 1997 period, the historical correlation
between 10 -
year Treasury yields and 10 -
year prospective (and actual realized) equity returns is actually slightly negative over the past century, and is only weakly positive in post-war data.
If state and local pensions were paying mind to interest rates — as they should, and as corporate and overseas public employee plans are required to do — contributions would have risen significantly as the
yield on 20 -
year U.S.
Treasuries dropped 3.7 percentage points
between 2000 and 2016.
In recent weeks, the spread (or difference)
between the
yield of the 10 -
year Treasury and a high
yield bond of comparable maturity actually widened a bit, roughly 0.45 %, restoring some value in the space.
Explaining the historical relationship
between the 10 -
year Treasury bond
yield and the 30 -
year fixed mortgage rate... a quick and dirty way to track expected mortgage rate movement.
For example, if the five -
year Treasury bond is at 5 % and the 30 -
year Treasury bond is at 6 %, the
yield spread
between the two debt instruments is 1 %.
This is only one day, but the
yield curve slope, measured by the difference in
yields between 10 -
year and 2 -
year Treasuries, widened 10 basis points today.
Between June 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013, the U.S. 10 -
year treasury yield climbed by 42 %.
The 6 - month change in employment (using Household Survey data) had turned negative and the spread
between 2 -
year Treasury yields and the Fed Funds rates fell to less than -1.3 percentage points.
The difference in
yield between two -
year and 10 -
year Treasuries recently fell below 50 basis points (source: Bloomberg).
Thirty
years ago, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one - day drop in the Dow of 508 points, or
treasury bill
yields fluctuating
between 2.8 % and 17.4 %.