A chart of government bond yields across different maturities.
Normally the curve slopes upward, because investors demand a term premium for tying up money longer. An inverted curve, with short maturities yielding more than long ones, shows that the market expects lower policy rates. Every US recession since the late 1960s was preceded by an inversion, with highly variable lead times – and the long inversion from 2022 was not followed by a recession during that period.