A steeper path to follow

Sovereign debt yield curves are steepening.

On Thursday, US 30-year yields hit four-month highs after a government long-dated auction received poor demand and revived worries over the federal budget deficit.

With reason. Outstanding Treasury debt currently looks like this:

In fact, according to Bloomberg, the Treasury yield curve has now hit its steepest since at least 1980. Here at least is how today’s curves compare to those in 2007.

As they stand today:

And how they stood two years ago:

And for those interested to see how US liabilities have been dispersed, here’s the current distribution of US public debt according to TreasuryDirect: