In absolute numbers it’s easy to shrug off, but the trend appears to have gained new momentum over the past week or so.
We’re talking here of the spread between the nominal 10-year Treasury Note and its inflation-indexed counterpart, a.k.a., the 10-year TIPS. The yield difference between these two securities is one of the more widely watched market-based forecasts of inflation. It’s not infallible, but neither is it irrelevant. It does, however, offer a real-time measure of the crowd’s outlook for inflation and as our chart below suggests, the market seems to be growing increasingly anxious.
In absolute terms, of course, it still looks trivial. The current 10-year inflation forecast of 1.73% is, by historical standards, quite low. And as the chart above reminds, we’re still quite a ways from the 2.5% forecast that prevailed before all hell broke loose last September.