Bonds & Yield Curve
Bonds renders the nine-point Treasury yield curve with month-ago / year-ago overlays, all UST tenors from 1M to 30Y as cards, key spread tiles (2s10s, 10Y-3M, TED), real-yield TIPS, plus a recession panel composited from rates and macro inputs.
The Bonds page is a fixed-income terminal for US Treasuries — the full curve from 1-month bills to 30-year bonds, the spreads the market actually watches (2s10s, 10Y-3M, TED), real yields via TIPS, and a recession-indicator panel that composites curve shape with macro inputs. It draws on official Treasury and macro data. Click any tenor to expand its multi-year chart. The page leads with the Fed Funds banner so the policy rate context sits above everything.
What it is
A specialized reader for the Treasury curve. The page loads nine UST maturities (1M, 3M, 6M, 1Y, 2Y, 5Y, 10Y, 20Y, 30Y) plus the three TIPS tenors (5Y, 10Y, 30Y), the 10Y breakeven inflation series, and three spreads (2s10s, 10Y-3M, TED). The yield curve component renders all nine tenors as a connected line with month-ago and year-ago overlays so curve shape changes are visible at a glance. Each indicator card shows latest yield, daily change in basis points, and a sparkline.
When to use it
Pre-FOMC — load the page, read where 2s10s is, where the curve has flattened or steepened in the last month, what the breakeven is implying about inflation. Front-running CPI — TIPS yields move on real-rate expectations independent of the inflation headline, so a falling 10Y TIPS into a hot CPI print often means the market thinks the Fed will hike harder. Watching the recession trade — inverted 2s10s for > 6 months is the recession setup; re-steepening (the bull-steepener or bear-steepener) is often the recession-imminent signal. Sizing duration risk — the 30Y card shows how far long-end yields have moved, which is the proxy for mortgage / housing / utility-stock pain.
Open it
- Path:
/bonds - Shortcut: none — accessible from the
§DATAgroup in the sidebar - Tier-gate: Free sees five Treasury maturities (2Y, 5Y, 10Y, 20Y, 30Y) and the yield curve; Pro unlocks all nine maturities plus the Key Spreads section (2s10s, 10Y-3M, TED) and the bond-market AI summary; Terminal adds the TIPS / real-yields section
How to use it
- Open
/bonds. The Fed Funds banner renders first with the current policy rate and recent change. The yield curve loads below. - Read the yield curve. Three lines overlay — current (solid), 1-month ago (faded), 1-year ago (further faded). A flatter current line vs. a year ago means the curve has flattened; an inverted current line means short rates are above long rates.
- Click any Treasury rate card to expand its multi-year chart. Click again to collapse.
- The Key Spreads section (Pro+) shows the three spreads traders actually watch:
- 10Y-2Y — classic recession indicator, inverts ahead of every modern recession
- 10Y-3M — Fed's preferred curve (Powell cites this one)
- TED — bank funding stress; spike means counterparty risk is rising
- Real Yields TIPS (Terminal) shows the three TIPS tenors. Real yield = nominal yield − breakeven inflation; rising real yields mean tighter financial conditions independent of inflation prints.
- The Bond Recession Panel at the bottom composites curve shape, real-yield trajectory, and historical recession lookback into a regime read.
- The bond-market AI summary (Pro+) lives in the section header on the right — collapsed by default, click to expand for a written read on what the curve is saying.
Fields
Treasury rates
| Tenor | Free |
|---|---|
| 1 Month | — |
| 3 Month | — |
| 6 Month | — |
| 1 Year | — |
| 2 Year | yes |
| 5 Year | yes |
| 10 Year | yes |
| 20 Year | yes |
| 30 Year | yes |
Key spreads (Pro+)
| Spread | What it is | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| 2s10s | 10Y minus 2Y | < 0 = inverted; recession leading indicator |
| 10Y-3M | 10Y minus 3M | < 0 = inverted; the Fed's preferred read |
| TED | 3M LIBOR minus 3M T-bill | Spike = bank funding stress |
Real yields TIPS (Terminal)
| Series | Tenor |
|---|---|
| 5Y TIPS | 5-year real yield |
| 10Y TIPS | 10-year real yield |
| 30Y TIPS | 30-year real yield |
| 10Y breakeven | 10Y breakeven inflation (nominal − real) |
Color convention
Bonds use the inverted convention — a yield going *up* prints red (because higher yields = lower prices = bondholder pain). Spreads color by direction: positive 2s10s green (steepening = healthy), negative red (flattening / inversion).
Limits
- Yields are daily resolution, not intraday. They update once per day, published the evening of the trading day.
- The curve overlays use the observation from exactly 28 days ago (month-ago) and ≥ 360 days ago (year-ago), not calendar-month-end. Holidays and bond-market closures (rare US closures, more common UK / Japan holidays affecting global yields) can shift the lookback by a day.
- We surface UST cash-market yields, not futures. There's no ZB / ZN / ZF / ZT futures curve here — for futures-implied yields, you'll need to compute the basis externally.
- No corporate or municipal bond data on the page. The traditional bond ETF proxies (
TLT,IEF,SHY,LQD,AGG,HYG) trade on the equity side — pull them up in/chartsor/scannerinstead. - TED Spread is a legacy indicator — LIBOR was retired in 2023, so the underlying TED data quality has degraded. Treat as historical-context, not live signal.
- TIPS yields don't move smoothly — they jump on auction days. Don't read sub-week TIPS moves as signal.
- Recession panel is intentionally lagging — composite of slow-moving inputs (curve shape, multi-quarter trends). It won't catch a 2020-style sudden recession in time.
Troubleshooting
Yield curve is flat / empty. No observations came back for one or more maturities in the requested range — usually transient. Refresh after a minute. If it persists, check status.tapeboard.com.
Key Spreads section shows upgrade gate even though I'm Pro. The store hasn't hydrated — hard-refresh once. If it stays gated, check /settings/account for your active tier.
TIPS card shows —. The latest observation is missing — TIPS publish with a one-trading-day lag, so check back the next day.
Curve looks the same as yesterday. Bond yields move slowly outside of Fed days, CPI, NFP, and auctions. If you genuinely think yields moved and the page doesn't reflect it, you're probably looking at intraday futures moves that haven't yet shown up in the daily publish.
Fed Funds banner says one rate but news says another. The banner shows the effective fed funds rate, which trades slightly inside the target range. The headline "Fed raises rates to 5.25%" refers to the upper bound of the target range, not the effective rate. They differ by ~10–15 bps under normal conditions.