purposes. Common examples include government bond curves, overnight indexed swap curves and interest rate swap curves. These families are produced by central banks and data providers from prices of instruments in each market and are kept comparable within a family by construction.

Analysts often summarize the curve's shape with a "term spread" such as the difference between the 10-year Treasury yield and the 3-month Treasury bill rate. Central banks track these measures because a sustained inversion has historically preceded U.S. recessions