Course 6 · Reading the Data
The Yield Curve, Explained
收益率曲线详解
The Yield Curve, Explained is Kitalpha Course 6: 6 lessons, about 2.5 hours, free. Every lesson is anchored to a live Kitalpha record (The live U.S. Treasury par yield curve, the 2s10s and 3m10y spread series with their inversion history, and the same curve one month and one year earlier). General educational information only.
What a yield curve is — one borrower, many maturities, one date — and how to read Kitalpha's live U.S. Treasury curve: the tenors, the 2s10s and 3m10y spreads in basis points, inversion described as a fact about the shape, steepening and flattening between two dates, which end of the curve moved, and where today's spread sits against its own history. Six lessons on live Treasury records.
What you will be able to do
- Define a yield curve and its tenors — one borrower, many maturities, one date — and name each tenor on a live U.S. Treasury curve record.
- Read Kitalpha's Treasury-tenor chart: which tenor sits at which point, what the curve's height and slope record on that date, and what a dated snapshot leaves out.
- Explain a spread such as 2s10s or 3m10y as one yield minus another, compute it from a live record in percentage points and in basis points, and tell a spread apart from a level.
- Identify an inverted segment factually from the sign of a spread, and state what the site's inverted, flat and positively sloped labels describe and what they leave unsaid.
- Describe steepening and flattening as a change in a spread between two dates, and say which end of the curve moved by comparing each tenor's own change over the same window.
- Interpret a spread's percentile against its own history as the share of past readings at or below today's figure, kept distinct from the figure's size in basis points.
Audience: Anyone who has seen the words 'the curve inverted' in a headline and wants to know what was measured. Courses 1 (money, time and interest) and 5 (reading a central-bank decision) come first; subtraction and a percentage are the only arithmetic assumed.
Lessons
- 01 Tenors: the same borrower, different dates
Concept: the term structure of yields · 8 min · done
- 02 Reading a spread: one yield minus another
Concept: a spread as a difference · 8 min · done
- 03 Inversion, described
Concept: inversion as a described shape · 9 min · done
- 04 Steepening and flattening: how the curve's shape changes
Concept: a change in the curve's slope · 9 min · done
- 05 Which end moved: decomposing a month's change in the curve
Concept: decomposing a curve move by end · 9 min · done
- 06 A spread against its own history: percentile as position, not prediction
Concept: percentile as position in a record's history · 9 min · done
Spaced review
After each lesson, review sets fall due at 1, 7 and 30 days — cumulative, and interleaved across lessons and record types. Due sets appear here.
Mastery task
The course ends with a transfer task: 6 items on the newest Kitalpha record you have not seen, pass mark 80%. On a fail, the missed items map to their lessons and a review of those lessons is scheduled before a retake. A completion page is issued only on mastery. Go to the mastery task →
Optional: plan your study (once)
Write when, where and how you will study, plus one obstacle and how you will get past it. Stored on this device only.
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