However, this is the first time this kind of yield inversion has occurred right after the Fed announced plans to stop reducing its balance sheet, which grew to unprecedented levels in response to the financial crisis. You can see the enormous impact that the Fed's balance sheet growth had on the monetary base here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lIdk
Until recently, the Fed had been reducing its balance sheet by up to $54B/month; it announced plans to stop.[a][b] How and to what degree has this impacted yields?
As additional context, consider that the yield inversion has occurred during a rise in import tariffs, trading restrictions, and public threats between the US and China (and now Mexico too). So far, the economic impact of these trading spats on the US economy has been small.[c] Could the recent yield inversion be caused more by a global flight to safety. in conjunction to the Fed's actions, than the actual risk of a US recession?
Is it even possible to answer these questions with certainty? I'd be leery of any predictions for the US economy based solely on this recent inversion of the yield curve.
> How and to what degree has this impacted yields? Is it even possible to answer this question with certainty?
To reduce its balance sheet, the Fed has rolled down assets, allowing them to mature. By choosing to not reinvest the principal from these matured assets, they reduce the size of the balance sheet. My understanding is that the reinvestment occurs in longer dated securities, which would put flattening pressure on the curve. Estimates indicate a reduction of these purchases would raise 10y yields 40-60bps [0]. All other things being equal, this would lead to steepening of the yield curve.
> I'd be leery of any predictions of recession in the US based solely on yield inversion.
Not all yield curve inversions have preceded recessions, but almost all recent recessions have been preceded by yield curve inversions. Yield curve inversions lasting 10 days or longer tend to have more predictive power. The inversion in March did not last that long, for example. On average, a recession follows 14 months after an inversion [1].
Assuming you use 0 as your magic ball number. Move the magic ball number up just a tiny bit to 0.07 and you would have had a false positive in september 1998. You could also move it down to -0.32 and you would still a 100% success rate, albeit with a sample size of 3...
It’s dangerous to reason about this without a white board, but I think that means the negative difference between 10y and 3 mo would be decreased by the fed not reinventing in long term securities.
> I think that means the negative difference between 10y and 3 mo would be decreased by the fed not reinventing in long term securities.
When the value of the spread between a long dated (e.g. 10Y) and a short dated (e.g. 3m) instrument increases, the yield curve is referred to as 'steepening'. When this spread decreases (even when becoming more negative), the curve is said to 'flatten'.
> They recently announced they would stop doing that.
I'm aware. Markets are forward looking. As you can see, yields have dropped precipitously since the announcement, and the curve has flattened. This is consistent with expectations of increased purchases of securities in the tail end of the curve.
Yes...and therefore, this recent yield inversion may not be related to growing risk of recession in the US. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I don't know. That's why I'm leery of predictions made based solely on the inversion of yields. Things are different this time.
> this recent yield inversion may not be related to growing risk of recession in the US
It's been a reliable signal in the past, but perhaps this time is different.
Interestingly, some economists postulate that such an inversion may be somewhat causative of recession, due to increased short term funding costs relative to long term funding costs.
Usually when the economy heats up, the Federal Reserve raises interest rates to cool it down.
Then in a recession, the Fed reduces rates to heat it up.
Historically, interest rates drop 5 percentage points in recessions.
But since rates are currently just north of 2 percent, there's no room to maneuver. If a recession hits now, the Fed cannot drop rates 5 percentage points. They'll run out of ammunition at the zero lower bound.
> But since rates are currently just north of 2 percent, there's no room to maneuver. If a recession hits now, the Fed cannot drop rates 5 percentage points. They'll run out of ammunition at the zero lower bound.
There's no reason rates cannot go negative. Bund yields (Germany) are negative currently [0]. As a matter of policy, there are other approaches that may be taken. A modified Taylor rule with a zero lower bound may deliver optimal policy if the neutral rate falls below zero [1].
> Short-term trading signals are systematically arb'ed away
This isn't necessarily true. There are demonstrable, persistent calendar effects that can be reliably traded. Such trading can be thought of as a service being provided to market participants for a fee (e.g. balance sheet as a service).
This signal is typically only indicative in the United States, as the Fed doesn't officially factor it into the decision making process. Other central banks consider it, so it does not seem to have the same predictive power.
The treasury market reflects demand for 'risk-free' securities, which functionally serve as bank accounts for corporate entities without access to bank reserves on the Fed's balance sheet. When market participants expect rate cuts in the future, long term assets with a locked in yield become more attractive to hold relative to short tenors, as the short dated treasuries need to be rolled more frequently.
Additionally, it may be that the curve inversion itself causes greater expense in short term funding (e.g. overnight), leading to potential contractions in economic activity.
There's no arbitrage in the strict sense, that's clear.
But there's none in the statistical sense, either. Yield curve inversion doesn't happen all that often, how are you going to confidently bet that what happened the last few times will happen again this time, given that n is so low and there's always the issue of regime change?
Yes, that’s exactly why pundits shouldn’t be so confident. All the same reasons for uncertainty apply to investors and pundits alike—-but confidence in punditry garners little risk.
Someone please correct me if I have misunderstood anything here, but having a better rate for a bond that matures after 3 months, than for one that matures after 10 years, is definitely a bit odd.
If you purchase a 3m treasury bill, you will have to roll your capital into another in 3 months. If you expect the Fed to cut rates in the interim, you will receive a lower yield on that bill. The discount on the bill helps compensate for that risk.
I suppose the fed could cut rates in the next three months, however currently they are mostly making noises about not moving it up or down. Other people's current predictions on this are all over the place and seem more dependent on what each author would prefer than neccessarily any reality. I can find mainstream articles telling me why the fed must move rates up and others that insist that they must move them down. This makes me suspect that the fed is probably going to remain roughly fixed, at least for a bit.
> Other people's current predictions on this are all over the place and seem more dependent on what each author would prefer than neccessarily any reality.
Expectations of Fed rate hikes and cuts are reflected in the fed funds futures market, where participants estimate future values of the fed funds rate. Currently, the market implies a 94% chance of at least one rate cut by December [0].
Financial Times [1] points out the risk of trade war with China/Mexico and the economic slowdown this would cause is leading investors to expect Fed will have to cut rates.
It’s not odd if you think that interest rates will go down in the future. If you believe that then you should buy longer term bonds to lock in the higher rate now.
There's no better way to get a recession than to have everyone acting like there is going to be a recession. Yield inversion indicates the market is starting to think there is going to be one.
Swapping the order of a subtraction just flips the result vertically, doesn't it? So you'd see the same trend and just have to look at it the other way.
> They’re graphing 10y-3mo here. Is that what you mean? Minus is not commutative.
The synthetic instrument 3m-10y is referred to as a 'curve'. It can be denoted 3m-10y. Convention is such that the value of a curve is long dated tenor minus short dated tenor.
One names the spread by denoting the two instruments, by convention first the short dated, then the long dated (for example, 2y/10y or 3m/10y or indeed 3m-10y, where the '-' is a hyphen).
One computes the spread by subtracting the short dated yield from the long dated one (ie, 10y - 3m, where the '-' is a minus).
Not that I know of. A lot of financial market conventions and practices are not very well documented, or not easily obtained at any rate. For example, a lot of terms and conventions pertaining to interest rate swaps are available in the 2006 ISDA Definitions (and equivalents for equity, FX, credit, etc.), but they're not available online legally AFAIK (though you might find them).
It contains gems such as this:
> Section 4.11. FRN Convention; Eurodollar Convention. “FRN Convention” or “Eurodollar Convention” means, in respect of either Payment Dates or Period End Dates for a Swap Transaction and a party, that the Payment Dates or Period End Dates of that party will be each day during the Term of the Swap Transaction that numerically corresponds to the preceding applicable Payment Date or Period End Date, as the case may be, of that party in the calendar month that is the specified number of months after the month in which the preceding applicable Payment Date or Period End Date occurred (or, in the case of the first applicable Payment Date or the Period End Date, the day that numerically corresponds to the Effective Date in the calendar month that is the specified number of months after the month in which the Effective Date occurred), except that (a) if there is not any such numerically corresponding day in the calendar month in which a Payment Date or Period End Date, as the case may be, of that party should occur, then the Payment Date or Period End Date will be the last day that is a Business Day in that month, (b) if a Payment Date or Period End Date, as the case may be, of the party would otherwise fall on a day that is not a Business Day, then the Payment Date or Period End Date will be the first following day that is a Business Day unless that day falls in the next calendar month, in which case the Payment Date or Period End Date will be the first preceding day that is a Business Day and (c) if the preceding applicable Payment Date or Period End Date, as the case may be, of that party occurred on the last day in a calendar month that was a Business Day, then all subsequent applicable Payment Dates or Period End Dates, as the case may be, of that party prior to the Termination Date will be the last day that is a Business Day in the month that is the specified number of months after the month in which the preceding applicable Payment Date or Period End Date occurred.
Call it what you want, it's still people trying to make predictions based on limited signal. As the top comment says, this alone isn't necessarily meaningful.
However, this is the first time this kind of yield inversion has occurred right after the Fed announced plans to stop reducing its balance sheet, which grew to unprecedented levels in response to the financial crisis. You can see the enormous impact that the Fed's balance sheet growth had on the monetary base here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lIdk
Until recently, the Fed had been reducing its balance sheet by up to $54B/month; it announced plans to stop.[a][b] How and to what degree has this impacted yields?
As additional context, consider that the yield inversion has occurred during a rise in import tariffs, trading restrictions, and public threats between the US and China (and now Mexico too). So far, the economic impact of these trading spats on the US economy has been small.[c] Could the recent yield inversion be caused more by a global flight to safety. in conjunction to the Fed's actions, than the actual risk of a US recession?
Is it even possible to answer these questions with certainty? I'd be leery of any predictions for the US economy based solely on this recent inversion of the yield curve.
[a] https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
[b] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed-balancesheet/fed-...
[c] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/politics/trump-tariff-...