The Treasury yield curve is one of the best and most applicable tools that a global macro investor can have in his or her toolbox. Most of the time used for bond trading there are several applications for it in the stocks and currency market as well. The truth is by using the yield curve correctly you can better trade just about everything.

So what is the Treasury yield curve? It is the curve you get when you plot out the yields on different maturities of Treasury securities. For instance if you take the ninety day Treasury bill, the two year Treasury bill, five year Treasury note, ten year Treasury bond, and the thirty year Treasury bond you will get a curve. Usually sloping upwards from the bottom left to the upper right of the plot area, it can also take several other shapes. It can be very inverted with the far right down at the bottom and the far left at the top, it can have seemingly random lumps, and it can shift anywhere on the plot area. Each of these shapes and slopes of the yield curve tell the global macro investor something differently about the economy and the different trading instruments available to you.

So how do you apply the yield curve to your trading? Well there are a few main rules of thumb. An upwards sloping yield curve is typically bullish for the economy and stocks, whereas a downwards sloping or inverted yield curve is typically bullish for bonds.

So how does this help your trading? Well if the curve is steep then there is little chance that bonds will be able to stage a very robust rally. At the same time it might be a great time to go long stocks. If the curve is sloping down then it is a harbinger of things to come and the economy is ready to contract and therefore it is kind of a sell signal for stocks. At the same time if the curve is inverted then it is a great time to look at going long bonds as the Fed will likely begin a interest rate easing cycle and therefore driving up bond prices.

If the curve is inverted however business is usually about to slow down, rates will be lowered, and bonds will climb. This is because with the incentive of the banks to lend now gone they will throttle back and the spigots of available money run dry. In turn this forces the Fed to lower short term rates, the Fed Fund rate, in order to spur business growth once again. When they lower rates bonds inevitably go up.

Bonds and rates are like a piece of wood straddled on a log. If you sit at one end the other end goes up. If bonds are at one end yields are at the other. When yields go down bonds go up and vice versa. This is almost always the case, especially in an inflation environment.

So if you are a global macro investor that is using the yield curve you can forecast when to get in and when to get out of stocks and bonds based on the macro economy. At the same time you can use the information and trade currency differentials as well.

Neither of these relationships works perfect every time so it is important to still use risk controls. In fact if you had gone long stocks in 2008 when they lowered rates you would have lost a lot of money, but more often then not this trade and the concept behind it work well. Look at the yield curve, learn from it, and apply it to your market forecasting toolbox.