Brace for a 15% plunge in S&P 500 next year if the Treasury yield curve fully inverts

Parts of the U.S. bond market are seeing short-dated yields push above their long-dated peers, a “warning sign” for the stock market as Wall Street’s economic expectations for 2019 deteriorate.

That’s what Oliver Jones, an analyst for Capital Economics, said in a recent note, as investors pay newfound attention to the yield curve, the spread between short-dated and long-dated yields. Jones and others are worried that if this gap continues to narrow, more losses will follow for the S&P 500 SPX, -2.33% which has already been retreating from its October highs.

“History suggests that once the Treasury yield curve becomes very flat or starts to invert, the stock market tends to struggle over the following couple of years, as the economy eventually starts to weaken,” said Jones.

Jones says investors may not want to take any chances. In the chart below, he shows that whenever the spread between the 2-year note has matched or pushed above the 10-year note yield, the S&P 500’s returns over the next two years has turned negative. He expects the S&P 500 to slump 15% in 2019.

[link to www.marketwatch.com (secure)]