Bond investing 101: Interpreting the yield curve

Description

Abstract: Conversations about the bond market can quickly become technical, but the yield curve is a straightforward analytical tool that can provide insight into current market conditions, the interest rate environment in the bond market and perhaps even the direction of the economy. The yield curve is a graph that tracks the interest rates that bonds pay across a range of maturities, and is constantly shifting based on a variety of market and economic conditions. There are four basic shapes to the yield curve: normal, flat, inverted and steep.