The yield curve has been the talk of the financial universe for months now because, well, because it’s collapsing and by many accounts has a date with inversion. Historically speaking, that’s a bright red flashing light vis-a-vis the economy.
The December Fed minutes suggest everyone spent a fair amount of time debating exactly what the h*%# is going on and whether it’s something anyone needs to be particularly concerned about. Here’s the relevant excerpt:
Meeting participants also discussed the recent narrowing of the gap between the yields on long- and short-maturity nominal Treasury securities, which had resulted in a flatter profile of the term structure of interest rates. Among the factors contributing to the flattening, participants pointed to recent increases in the target range for the federal funds rate, reductions in investors’ estimates of the longer-run neutral real interest rate, lower longer-term inflation expectations, and lower term premiums. They generally agreed that the current degree of flatness of the yield curve was not unusual by historical standards. However, several participants thought that it would be important to continue to monitor the slope of the yield curve. Some expressed concern that a possible future inversion of the yield curve, with short-term yields rising above those on longer-term Treasury securities, could portend an economic slowdown, noting that inversions have preceded recessions over the past several decades, or that a protracted yield curve inversion could adversely affect the financial condition of banks and other financial institutions and pose risks to financial stability. A couple of other participants viewed the flattening of the yield curve as an expected consequence of increases in the Committee’s target range for the federal funds rate, and judged that a yield curve inversion under such circumstances would not necessarily foreshadow or cause an economic downturn. It was also noted that contacts in the financial sector generally did not express concern about the recent flattening of the term structure.
