Economy

70 years of the yield curve

Every month's US Treasury yield curve since 1953, drawn as one colour field: time runs across, maturity runs up, and colour is the interest rate — pale in the 1981 inflation peak, dark through the zero-rate 2010s. Rust ticks mark inverted months, when 3-month bills paid more than 10-year bonds; a recession band follows nearly every one. Hover any month for the numbers.

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Data & source

Source: FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — monthly constant-maturity Treasury yields (TB3MS, GS1–GS30) and the NBER recession indicator (USREC) · public domain · fetched —. Coverage begins 1953-04 with the 10-year series; 2-year yields exist from 1976, 30-year from 1977 with a 2002–06 gap — each ridge is drawn only through the maturities its month actually had. "Inverted" here means the 10-year yield sits below the 3-month bill. Displayed: the 3m–10y stretch, present for the whole 73 years (20/30-year yields, which start in 1977, are in the data file). Each month's column interpolates color between the tenors that month actually had; pre-1976 columns have no 2-year point and are shown as the smooth in-between that they are.