Par yield curve as of September 9, 2026 · official U.S. Treasury data
The curve is upward sloping: the 10-year yields +40 bp versus the 2-year.
| Spread | Today | 1 Day | 1 Month Ago | 1 Year Ago | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10Y − 2Y | +40 bp | -1 bp | +47 bp | +59 bp | The headline curve measure. Negative means inverted. |
| 10Y − 3M | +88 bp | +2 bp | +83 bp | +3 bp | Favoured in Federal Reserve research as a recession predictor. |
| 30Y − 5Y | +67 bp | -1 bp | +84 bp | +119 bp | The long end’s slope, mostly a term-premium read. |
| 30Y − 10Y | +45 bp | +0 bp | +53 bp | +68 bp | Compensation demanded for the last twenty years of duration. |
| 2Y − 3M | +48 bp | +3 bp | +36 bp | -56 bp | Front end. Negative means the market expects near-term cuts. |
| Maturity | Yield | 1-Day Change | 1 Year Ago | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1M | 3.81% | +0 bp | 4.29% | -48 bp |
| 2M | 3.93% | +2 bp | 4.24% | -31 bp |
| 3M | 3.95% | +1 bp | 4.07% | -12 bp |
| 6M | 4.01% | +1 bp | 3.85% | +16 bp |
| 1Y | 4.17% | +2 bp | 3.65% | +52 bp |
| 2Y | 4.43% | +4 bp | 3.51% | +92 bp |
| 3Y | 4.49% | +5 bp | 3.48% | +101 bp |
| 5Y | 4.61% | +4 bp | 3.59% | +102 bp |
| 7Y | 4.71% | +3 bp | 3.80% | +91 bp |
| 10Y | 4.83% | +3 bp | 4.10% | +73 bp |
| 20Y | 5.28% | +2 bp | 4.72% | +56 bp |
| 30Y | 5.28% | +3 bp | 4.78% | +50 bp |
| Started | Ended | Sessions | Deepest | Deepest On |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 6, 2022 | Aug 26, 2024 | 537 | -108 bp | Jul 3, 2023 |
Counted as consecutive published sessions where the 10-year closed below the 2-year, with runs shorter than 5 sessions excluded as noise. Computed from the daily Treasury par yield curve, not from a fixed list, so it stays current.
The yield curve plots what the government pays to borrow at each maturity, from a one-month bill to a thirty-year bond. Normally it slopes upward, because lenders want more compensation for committing money for longer and for bearing the risk that inflation erodes it. The steepness of that slope is a rough measure of how much growth and inflation the market expects.
Three shapes carry meaning. An upward-sloping curve is the ordinary state and generally accompanies an expanding economy. A flat curve says the market sees little difference between committing money for two years or ten, which usually means it expects rates to stay roughly where they are. An inverted curve says something stronger: that short rates will be lower in future than they are now, which normally reflects an expectation of rate cuts in response to a slowdown.
The signal is not magic, and it is not really the curve doing the predicting. An inverted curve is the bond market saying it expects the Federal Reserve to be cutting rates within a few years, and the Fed cuts when the economy weakens. The curve is a summary of that expectation, expressed with money rather than in a forecast.
There is also a mechanical channel. Banks borrow short and lend long, so an inverted curve compresses the margin on new lending. Credit gets tighter at exactly the moment the economy can least afford it, which helps turn the expectation into the outcome.
Two caveats matter. The lag between inversion and recession has ranged from several months to more than two years, which makes the signal useless for timing. And the curve typically re-steepens before the recession arrives, because it un-inverts once cuts are actually priced in. The end of an inversion is not the all-clear it appears to be.
Part of a long-dated yield is the average short rate expected over its life, and part is the extra return investors demand simply for accepting the uncertainty of a long commitment. That second part is the term premium, and it is not directly observable, which is why two analysts can look at the same rise in the 10-year and disagree about whether it reflects better growth expectations or just less appetite for duration.
It matters for reading the curve because a steepening driven by a rising term premium says something quite different from one driven by expectations of rate hikes. Government borrowing needs, foreign official demand and inflation uncertainty all push on the term premium without saying anything about the next Fed meeting.
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury daily par yield curve — official public-domain U.S. government data, published once per business day. This page is information, not investment advice; see our disclaimer.