Treasury bond yield curve inversion often signals the next economic recession in America.

Monica McNeil

2018-10-11 08:44:00 Thu ET

Treasury bond yield curve inversion often signals the next economic recession in America. In fact, U.S. bond yield curve inversion correctly predicts the dawn of an economic recession every time since the 1970s. The term spread is the difference between the 10-year Treasury bond yield and the 2-year Treasury bond yield. The Treasury yield curve inverts when this term spread falls below zero or the short-term government bond yield exceeds the long-term bond yield. In this rare situation, investors bet on short-term reinvestment risk in exchange for less risk exposure to highly volatile long-term bond prices.

These higher long-term bond prices translate into lower long-term bond yields and thus result in government bond yield curve inversion. In this rare event, investors prefer to roll over their short-term bonds with substantial interest rate risk instead of having to keep their capital in long-term bonds that exhibit volatile price gyrations.

Low long-term bond yields suggest that these subpar rates of bond return cannot be commensurate with long-term risk exposure. In effect, sound economic intuition suggests that this rare situation dampens both nationwide capital investment and even household consumption as the ripple effects manifest in real GDP economic growth protraction.

U.S. economic history shows that it takes about 10 months for government bond yield curve inversion to reach the stock market peak plus another quarter until the next economic recession. A recent Forbes article discusses empirical evidence in support of the view that if U.S. bond yield curve inversion happens in December 2018, we would expect the current bull market to peak in September 2019. In this worst-case scenario, the U.S. economy may move into a new economic recession in February 2020. Whether this key scenario takes place in reality depends on how well the Trump administration maneuvers fiscal stimulus to help reinvigorate both macroeconomic output expansion and productivity growth.

The Trump team needs to consider how the current trade tactics and interest rate increases can induce the U.S. economy to derail off the steady-state growth path. New York Fed CEO John Williams and Fed Governor Lael Brainard admit that U.S. Treasury yield curve inversion can be a powerful indicator of the next recession.  However, both Williams and Brainard point out that *this time is different* because the U.S. economy gradually recovers from the zero lower bound of interest rates in recent years.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics and economic trends for better stock investment decisions.

Daphne Basel

2019-09-30 07:33:00 Monday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics and economic trends for better stock investment decisions.

AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube September 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of September 2019: (1) Former

+See More

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark.

Peter Prince

2019-07-27 17:37:00 Saturday ET

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark.

Capital gravitates toward key profitable mutual funds until the marginal asset return equilibrates near the core stock market benchmark. As Stanford finance

+See More

President Trump blames the Federal Reserve for its *crazy tight* interest rate hike.

Becky Berkman

2018-10-13 10:44:00 Saturday ET

President Trump blames the Federal Reserve for its *crazy tight* interest rate hike.

Dow Jones tumbles 3% or 831 points while NASDAQ tanks 4%, and this negative investor sentiment rips through most European and Asian stock markets in early-O

+See More

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries.

Amy Hamilton

2019-03-03 10:39:00 Sunday ET

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries.

Tech companies seek to serve as quasi-financial intermediaries. Retail traders can list items for sale on eBay and then acquire these items economically on

+See More

Empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction

Apple Boston

2022-02-25 00:00:00 Friday ET

Empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction

Empirical tests of multi-factor models for asset return prediction  The capital asset pricing model (CAPM) of Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), and Bla

+See More

Netflix suffers its first major loss of U.S. subscribers due to the recent price hikes.

Rose Prince

2019-08-14 10:31:00 Wednesday ET

Netflix suffers its first major loss of U.S. subscribers due to the recent price hikes.

Netflix suffers its first major loss of U.S. subscribers due to the recent price hikes. The company adds only 2.7 million new subscribers in 2019Q2 in stark

+See More