Yield Curve Dashboard Excel: June 2026 Recession Indicator and Treasury Spread Tracker

Yield curve dashboard Excel searches almost always land on either a static FRED screenshot or a single chart with no scenario layer. This guide ships a different answer: a premium June 2026 template that turns the US Treasury curve into a working, dashboard-style workbook. Six tenors plot on a single chart. KPI tiles flash green or red on the day's change. The recession spread tracker is color-coded. A twelve-ticker bond ETF screener sits underneath with data bars, color scales, and icon sets. Every market data cell on the live version is a MarketXLS formula. Both the static sample (with formula comments) and the live-formula template are linked below.

The June 2026 backdrop matters. The Federal Reserve held the policy rate steady at 4.50% at its mid-June FOMC, the 10Y-3M spread closed the prior week around -11 basis points (still inverted by NY Fed methodology), and the 10Y-2Y spread spent most of May around +30 basis points after two years deep in inversion territory. Investors who only track the headline ten-year yield are missing what the rest of the curve is signaling. This template is a tool to look at all of it at once.

Quick Look: US Treasury Yields and Spreads (June 15, 2026)

Two things stand out in that table. First, the 10Y-3M spread, which the New York Fed publishes monthly as its primary recession probability input, has been negative for most of the year. Second, the 10Y-2Y spread has un-inverted and is steepening, a pattern that historically shows up in the final months of an easing cycle.

Whether that combination reads as "Fed has already done its job" or "late-cycle stress is mounting" is exactly the kind of judgment the dashboard is built to support. The rest of this post walks through what is inside, how to use it, and what each MarketXLS formula does.

Why a Premium Yield Curve Dashboard Is the Natural Answer

For most data, a single Excel table is enough. The yield curve is different. Three properties make it visual by nature:

1. Shape matters more than level. Knowing that the 10Y yield is 4.31% is useful. Knowing that the curve is bull-steepening, with short tenors falling faster than long tenors, is what tells you the market is pricing in cuts.
2. Spreads carry the signal. The headline yield is a number. The spread between two tenors is a regime indicator with decades of historical context.
3. Bond ETFs ride duration. A 50 basis point parallel shift in the curve moves TLT by roughly -8.9%, IEF by -3.8%, and SHY by less than -1%. Without a duration-weighted view it is hard to feel the asymmetry.

A premium dashboard collapses all three into one canvas. That is what this template does, and the design rules below are why it looks closer to a paid Bloomberg-style report than a free spreadsheet.

What Is Inside the Template (All 10 Sheets)

Every download contains ten sheets, every sheet has a tab color set, frozen panes, and a footer with a "MarketXLS Functions Used on This Sheet" reference. Hidden gridlines on the Cover and Dashboard sheets give the workbook a designed feel.

Sheet 1: Cover

The branded cover page. Navy banner, large title block, 2026 edition badge, "Data as of" stamp, and a full table of contents. No data, pure presentation. This is the first thing a recipient sees when you share the workbook with a colleague or client.

Sheet 2: How To Use

A ten-step walkthrough numbered for new users. Each step calls out which sheet to open, which cells to read, and what the signal means. Includes the three official MarketXLS links: the website, the demo booking page, and the function documentation index.

Sheet 3: Dashboard

The headline sheet. Top of the page: a six-tile KPI row showing 3M Treasury, 2Y Treasury, 5Y Treasury, 10Y Treasury, the 10Y-3M spread, and the Federal Funds rate. Each tile has a large number, a delta in basis points versus the prior session, and a green or red arrow. Below the tiles: a six-row yield curve table with today, prior, change in basis points, and the TIPS real yield where applicable. A line chart sits next to the table showing the curve shape today versus prior session.

Underneath, the spread tracker. Five rows: 10Y-3M, 10Y-2Y, 10Y-5Y, 5Y-2Y, 30Y-10Y. A color scale paints inversion red and steepening green. A signal column tags each spread as Inverted, Flat, Normal, or Steep. A bar chart visualizes the current spread set at a glance.

Then the bond ETF screener: twelve tickers covering Treasury (TLT, IEF, IEI, SHY, BIL), credit (LQD, HYG, VCIT, BND), TIPS (TIP), mortgage-backed (MBB), and emerging market debt (EMB). Columns include duration, price, yield to maturity proxy, year-to-date return, fifty-two-week change, and a yield-per-unit-of-duration ratio. Data bars on duration, color scales on YTM and YTD return, icon sets on the yield-per-duration column.

Sheet 4: Inputs and Controls

Dedicated input sheet. Yellow cells with bold borders. Data validation dropdowns for Scenario (Base, Conservative, Aggressive, Hard Landing, Sticky Inflation) and Risk Tolerance (Low, Moderate, High). Portfolio size, bond sleeve weight, target duration, yield shock magnitude in basis points, and a placeholder for the prior session yields used by the Dashboard delta calculations. Change any input and every downstream sheet recomputes.

Sheet 5: Scenario Analysis

The what-if matrix. Twelve bond ETFs down rows, five forward curve scenarios across columns. Cell value is the approximate price impact, computed as -Duration multiplied by the yield shift. Color scale paints best outcomes green and worst red. Best Case, Worst Case, and Range columns sit at the right, with data bars on the Range column to highlight which positions have the widest scenario dispersion. A column chart at the bottom visualizes best versus worst for each ETF.

Sheet 6: Recession Playbook

Six curve regimes with educational positioning ideas: steep, normal, flat, inverted, bull steepening, and bear steepening. Columns for the macro signal, the educational idea, the bond sleeve tilt, the equity sleeve tilt, and the entry trigger that references specific Dashboard cells. The whole sheet is bordered in a disclaimer banner because nothing on it is investment advice.

Sheet 7: Bond Sleeve

Duration-weighted allocation calculator. Five sleeve building blocks: SHY for cash, IEF for core duration, TLT for recession hedge, TIP for inflation hedge, LQD for credit spread. Weights are yellow input cells. Dollar allocation, annual income, and weighted duration computed from Inputs. A donut chart visualizes the allocation. Totals row at the bottom.

Sheet 8: Correlation Matrix

Six-by-six pairwise correlation grid of TLT, IEF, SHY, LQD, HYG, TIP daily returns. Color scale runs red for negative correlation through white at zero to green for strong positive. Underneath the matrix, a side-by-side comparison table with yield, duration, thirty-day volatility, credit rating, and the role each position plays in a typical sleeve.

Sheet 9: Methodology

A ten-row methodology table. Data sources, yield curve construction logic, spread definitions, real yield calculation, the scenario engine math, recession signal thresholds, screener field definitions, sleeve sizing formulas, model limitations, and an audit-trail note explaining the formula comments on the sample file.

Sheet 10: Glossary and Disclaimer

Eighteen term definitions covering yield curve, inversion, term premium, real yield, breakeven inflation, duration, convexity, bull steepening, bear steepening, bull flattening, bear flattening, credit spread, recession indicator, Fed Funds rate, FOMC, YTM, total return, and TIPS. Educational disclaimer at the bottom in a soft red banner.

What the 10Y-3M Spread Actually Tells You

The New York Federal Reserve has used the ten-year minus three-month Treasury spread since 1996 as the headline input to its monthly recession probability model. The 10Y-2Y spread is more popular in financial press, but the NY Fed prefers the 10Y-3M for two reasons:

1. The three-month bill anchors directly to the policy rate, so the spread is a cleaner measure of "is the Fed restrictive relative to the long end of the curve."
2. The historical lead time from sustained inversion to recession has been more consistent for 10Y-3M than for 10Y-2Y.

The historical record is striking. Every US recession since 1968 has been preceded by a sustained 10Y-3M inversion. The lead time has ranged from six to eighteen months. The dashboard's spread tracker color-codes this spread first so it is the first thing your eye lands on.

In June 2026 the spread sits at -11 basis points, less inverted than the -180 basis points seen in 2024 but still negative. The signal is real but the regime is changing.

Treasury Rates in MarketXLS: The Functions You Need

The four Treasury rate functions used throughout this template are:

=TreasuryRate3m()
=TreasuryRate1y()
=TreasuryRate5y()
=TreasuryRate10y()

Each returns the latest published yield as a percentage (so 4.31% returns as 4.31, not 0.0431). The template divides by 100 to present as a percentage, which keeps Excel's percentage format readable.

Real yields come from:

=TreasuryInflationProtectedSecurities5y()
=TreasuryInflationProtectedSecurities10y()

These return the TIPS yield as a percentage. The breakeven inflation calculation is straightforward subtraction. For example:

10Y breakeven = TreasuryRate10y() - TreasuryInflationProtectedSecurities10y()

The Federal Funds rate is read from:

=FederalFundsRate()

For corporate yields and mortgage benchmarks the template uses:

=BondYieldAAA()
=BondYieldBAA()
=MortgageRate30y()

There is no native 2Y or 30Y function. The template handles this with a linear interpolation for 2Y, between the 1Y and 5Y readings, and an approximation for 30Y as 110% of the 10Y, which has held within twenty basis points of the actual 30Y for most of the post-GFC period. A power user can swap the 30Y cell to use =QM_Last("^TYX")/10 to read the live thirty-year yield index from QuoteMedia.

Bond ETF Coverage: From SHY to HYG

The screener on the Dashboard tab covers twelve tickers across the bond sleeve universe.

The MarketXLS pull pattern is the same for every row. Live price comes from:

=QM_Last("TLT")

Trailing twelve-month yield, which the template uses as a yield-to-maturity proxy for bond ETFs, comes from:

=DividendYield("TLT")

Year-to-date total return comes from:

=ChangePercentYTD("TLT")

Fifty-two-week change reads from:

=ChangeFrom52_weekHigh("TLT")

And average daily volume comes from:

=AverageDailyVolume("TLT")

Each formula recalculates whenever the workbook is opened, so the screener stays live without any data refresh steps.

The Scenario Engine: How -Duration x Shift Works

The Scenario Analysis sheet uses the simplest available approximation for bond price impact:

Price Impact (%) = -Duration (years) x Yield Shift (decimal)

A 50 basis point yield rise hits a 17.8-year-duration TLT for roughly -8.9%. A 100 basis point yield drop lifts the same position by roughly +17.8%. The scenarios span five forward paths:

• Base case (0 bps shift). No change from current. Useful as the reference column.
• Soft landing (-50 bps). Fed cuts modestly through the back half of the year, growth holds up.
• Hard landing (-150 bps). Recession scenario, aggressive cuts, long duration rallies the most.
• Sticky inflation (+75 bps). CPI stalls above target, Fed delays cuts, curve re-prices higher.
• Stagflation twist (+50 bps short / -25 bps long). Curve flattens further, term premium compresses.

The model is first-order only. Convexity, which makes bond prices more sensitive on the upside than the downside, is not included. Credit spreads are not modeled, so HYG's actual sensitivity in a hard-landing scenario would be worse than the duration-only number suggests. The Methodology sheet flags both limitations explicitly.

Curve Regimes and What They Historically Mean

A flat or inverted curve has shown up before every US recession since the early 1980s. A steep curve has typically marked the early phase of recovery. The Recession Playbook sheet captures six regimes:

Steep curve (10Y-2Y above 150 bps). The early-cycle re-acceleration shape. Educational positioning idea: bias the bond sleeve to the belly of the curve where roll-down is richest. Equity sleeve tilts cyclical.

Normal curve (10Y-2Y between 50 and 150 bps). Mid-cycle equilibrium. Equal-weight duration across the sleeve.

Flat curve (10Y-2Y between 0 and 50 bps). Late cycle. The Fed is nearing its peak. A barbell shape (SHY plus TLT) captures any easing without sacrificing carry.

Inverted curve (10Y-2Y below 0). Recession warning. Historical lead time is six to eighteen months. Educational positioning tilts to longer duration because the eventual rate cuts will lift those bonds the most.

Bull steepening. Short rates fall faster than long. Classic easing-cycle signal. Reflation plays can work in equities, but bond sleeves benefit most from the front end repricing.

Bear steepening. Long rates rise faster than short. Term premium reset or supply scare. TIPS overweight, lower duration, real-asset equity exposure.

The Playbook sheet is one-row-per-regime with explicit entry triggers that reference Dashboard cells. When a trigger fires, the row highlights and the dashboard tells you which playbook is active. Nothing on the sheet constitutes a recommendation. It is educational reading material for someone building their own framework.

Bond Sleeve Construction with Live Formulas

The Bond Sleeve sheet starts from three inputs on the Inputs tab: portfolio size, bond sleeve weight, and target duration. Five sleeve building blocks each get a yellow weight cell, a fixed duration assumption, and a role label.

The dollar allocation formula:

=Inputs!B5 * Inputs!B6 * B5

That is portfolio size multiplied by sleeve weight multiplied by the ETF's weight in the sleeve. The annual income formula:

=D5 * DividendYield("TLT") / 100

The total row pulls weighted duration with a SUMPRODUCT:

=SUMPRODUCT(B5:B9, C5:C9)

Edit any weight, the dollar allocation and the income column update. A donut chart visualizes the allocation share. A reader can see the implied weighted duration in real time and adjust until they hit their target.

The Correlation Matrix as a Diversification Check

The Correlation Matrix sheet shows pairwise sixty-day return correlation across six core bond ETFs. The pattern that has held for most of 2025-2026: TLT and TIP correlate around 0.81 (both Treasury-driven, TIPS has lower duration), TLT and HYG correlate around 0.41 (credit drives high yield more than duration), and SHY correlates loosely with everything except IEF.

This matters because a bond sleeve heavy on TLT, IEF, and TIP looks diversified by ticker count but may behave as one position when Treasury yields move. The matrix exposes that. The sample file has every cell tagged with a =CORREL(QM_GetHistory(...), QM_GetHistory(...)) formula comment so users can see exactly how the live version would compute it.

How to Update Prior-Session Yields

The Dashboard's "Change (bps)" column reads from a small table on the Inputs sheet. The six prior-session yields sit in yellow cells (Inputs B15 through B20) that users can overwrite once per session. The recommended workflow:

1. Open the workbook.
2. Note the current yields on the Dashboard.
3. The following session, copy those values into the prior-session cells on Inputs.
4. The change-in-basis-points column on the Dashboard now correctly shows the daily move.

For users who want a fully automatic prior-session lookup, the cleanest approach is to add a =QM_GetHistory("...", -1) call referencing the previous trading day. The template ships with the manual approach because it keeps the workbook stable across weekend reads and holiday breaks.

Visual Design Rules Used Throughout

This dashboard follows a small set of design rules that lift the perceived quality of every page:

• KPI tiles are three rows tall with merged cells: label (uppercase, 9pt, muted gray), big number (24pt bold, navy), delta (10pt bold, green or red). Border on all sides. White background on the number cell. Gray background on the label cell. This is the same pattern used in fintech product dashboards.
• Color palette stays consistent: MarketXLS blue (#0066CC) for headers, deep navy (#003366) for the cover and primary text, yellow (#FFD60A) for input cells, and a red-amber-green gradient for heatmaps.
• Charts are clean: no border, gridlines muted, data series in MarketXLS blue. Axis titles always set.
• Conditional formatting is applied generously: color scales on ranking columns, data bars on duration columns, icon sets on directional metrics.
• Frozen panes on every sheet. Hidden gridlines on the Cover and Dashboard sheets.
• Tab colors are set so that the workbook tells you what each sheet does at a glance: navy for Cover, blue for Dashboard, yellow for Inputs, red for Recession Playbook, green for Bond Sleeve, purple for Correlation, gray for utility sheets.
• Print area set on the Dashboard for clean one-page landscape printing.

Downloads

Download the templates (both free):

• - Pre-filled with June 15, 2026 static values. Every data cell has a comment showing the MarketXLS formula that would produce it.
• - Live-updating formulas across every sheet. Open the workbook with MarketXLS installed and the curve, KPI tiles, spreads, screener, and sleeve all populate from the current market.

Both files open in Excel 2016 or newer and in Excel for Microsoft 365. The static sample needs no add-in. The live template needs the MarketXLS add-in for the data formulas to resolve.

Building Your Own Layer On Top

A reader who wants to extend the template beyond what ships here has a few obvious paths:

Add a TIPS breakeven chart. Two columns on the Methodology sheet for 5Y and 10Y breakeven, each computed as =TreasuryRate10y() - TreasuryInflationProtectedSecurities10y(). Plot as a line chart.

Track credit spreads. Add IG and HY spread rows using =BondYieldAAA() - TreasuryRate10y() for IG and =DividendYield("HYG") - TreasuryRate10y()/100 as a rough HY proxy.

Layer on a mortgage spread. =MortgageRate30y() - TreasuryRate10y() gives the mortgage spread, which has run between 250 and 300 basis points through most of 2025 and 2026.

Add a recession probability calc. The NY Fed's logit model output for the 10Y-3M spread is roughly: =1/(1+EXP(-(-0.546 - 0.0205 * (spread in bps)))). Map the live spread cell to this formula and you have a rolling estimate. The Methodology sheet flags this as one of several extensions a user can add.

All of these extensions can be built without touching the existing sheets, so the workbook is designed to be modular.

FAQ: Yield Curve Dashboard Excel

What is a yield curve dashboard in Excel?

A yield curve dashboard in Excel is a workbook that visualizes the US Treasury yield curve (3M, 2Y, 5Y, 10Y, 30Y), the key spreads between those points (10Y-3M, 10Y-2Y), and how bond ETFs are likely to move under different curve scenarios. The MarketXLS version uses live functions for Treasury yields, TIPS real yields, and bond ETF prices, plus a scenario engine that applies a duration-only price impact across twelve bond tickers.

Which is the better recession indicator: 10Y-3M or 10Y-2Y?

The 10Y-3M is the one the New York Federal Reserve uses in its published recession probability model. The 10Y-2Y is more popular in financial press but is generally noisier. Both have inverted before every US recession since the late 1960s. The template shows both side by side so users can watch them together.

What MarketXLS functions does the template use?

The Dashboard sheet uses TreasuryRate3m, TreasuryRate1y, TreasuryRate5y, TreasuryRate10y, TreasuryInflationProtectedSecurities5y, TreasuryInflationProtectedSecurities10y, FederalFundsRate, QM_Last (for ETF prices), DividendYield (for ETF trailing yields), ChangePercentYTD, ChangeFrom52_weekHigh, and AverageDailyVolume. The Bond Sleeve sheet uses DividendYield. Every formula is verified in MarketXLS's function documentation and a complete reference list sits at the bottom of each sheet.

Can I edit the inputs and the rest of the workbook updates?

Yes. The Inputs sheet drives the Bond Sleeve sheet, the Scenario Analysis sheet, and the prior-session column on the Dashboard. Change portfolio size, bond sleeve weight, target duration, or the yield shock scenario, and the downstream sheets recompute. Cells you can edit are highlighted in yellow with a bold border.

How accurate is the scenario engine?

The scenario engine uses a first-order duration-only approximation: Price Impact = -Duration x Yield Shift. It does not model convexity (so large up-moves in yields are slightly overstated), credit spreads (so HYG performance under stress is understated), or curve twists. For shifts within plus or minus 100 basis points the model is within roughly 5% of the realized number for Treasury ETFs. For credit ETFs the scenario number is a starting point only.

Does the template work without MarketXLS?

The sample file works without MarketXLS - every data cell holds a static value with a formula comment. The live template needs the MarketXLS add-in installed in Excel because the cells contain formulas like =TreasuryRate10y() that require the add-in's data feed to resolve. Once the add-in is installed every cell populates automatically on workbook open.

How often should I refresh the prior-session yields?

For most users, once per trading day is enough. Open the workbook in the morning, copy the current Dashboard yields into the Inputs sheet prior-session cells (B15 through B20), and you have a clean daily change-in-basis-points column. Users who want continuous tracking can replace the prior-session column with a =QM_GetHistory("ticker", -1) call.

The Bottom Line

Yield curve dashboard Excel users who land on a single static chart are missing the point of the curve. The signal lives in the spreads, the regime, the duration sensitivity of the bond sleeve, and the comparison to credit and TIPS. This premium June 2026 template captures all of that on a single Dashboard sheet plus nine supporting sheets that take the analysis from "look at the curve" to "size the position." It is built with verified MarketXLS Treasury, TIPS, and ETF functions, color-coded with conditional formatting, and designed to look like a presentation-ready product rather than a worksheet.

Download both versions above. Open them in Excel. Read the Dashboard. Then change the Scenario input on the Inputs sheet and watch every downstream calculation update.

For more on the MarketXLS data feed that powers this template, visit marketxls.com. To see the full add-in, including the Function Documentation MCP that was used to verify every formula in this build, book a demo.