Minouche Shafik: Interpreting the yield curve – warning or opportunity? Speech by Ms Minouche Shafik, Deputy Governor for Markets and Banking of the Bank of England, at the Association of Corporate Treasurers Annual Conference, Manchester,  22 May 2015. *  *  *  Accompanying charts can be found at the end of the speech. The views in this speech are my own, and not those of the Bank of England or the Monetary PoIicy Committee. I would like to thank Ben Broadbent, Ronnie Driver, Kristin Forbes, Grellan McGrath, Martin Weale and Chris Young for their comments. It is a pleasure to be here. I would like to talk today about long term borrowing rates – a topic that I am sure is often on the mind of a corporate treasurer. I have been thinking about this issue since I joined the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), as not only are long yields an important input to current financial conditions, but – carefully interpreted – they can offer an insight on future developments too. I have been waiting to find a group who might be as intrigued by it as I am, so I jumped at the chance to speak to the Association of Corporate Treasurers. The yield on nominal 20-year UK government debt peaked at around 17% in 1974. After that long term yields began a period of decline which continued right up to the mid 2000s (Chart 1).
The Swedish Parliament (2022), "the Riksbank's monetary policy 2015–2020 has been evaluated", published on 31 March, available at The Riksbank's monetary policy 2015–2020 has been evaluated - the Riksdag. 13 [19]  Figures Diagram 1. Inflation in various countries and regions Annual percentage change  Note. Consumer prices refer to the CPIF for Sweden, the CPI for the United States and the United Kingdom and the HICP for the euro area. Sources: Eurostat, Statistics Sweden, UK Office for National Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Riksbank. Diagram 2. Riksbank's asset holdings Nominal amounts, SEK billion  Note. The bars refer to executed and decided purchases. Source: The Riksbank. 14 [19]  Tabell 1. Purchases of securities by ECB, Federal Reserve and the Riksbank Government securities  Commercial paper  Regional and municipal bonds  ECB*  🗸  🗸  Federal Reserve  🗸  🗸  🗸  The Riksbank  🗸  🗸  🗸  Covered bonds  MBS & ABS  🗸  🗸 🗸  🗸  Note. Mortgage Backed Securities (MSB) and Asset Backed Securities (ABS) are similar to covered bonds in that there is an underlying collateral for the bonds in the form of a loan portfolio. The difference lies, among other things, in different regulatory requirements and in which party has the underlying collateral on its balance sheet. *The ECB has also purchased bonds by supranational bodies. Source: Hansson and Birging (2021). Diagram 3.