Instead, the two-year yield is now higher than the ten-year yield.
But that curve can invert, a scenario that implies investors are taking on more risk in the near term.
Ahead of the last recession, the yield curve inverted briefly in December 2005, about two years before the financial crisis hit.
Much of the market's focus was on the USA yield curve, which has historically been one of the more reliable recession indicators.
Economic data from China and Germany suggested a faltering global economy, hit by the worsening U.S.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury dropped from 2.02% on July 31 to below 1.60%. Worries about a possible recession collided with hopes that the strongest part of the USA economy - shoppers spending at stores and online - can keep going.
Yields on 10-year US Treasury bonds dipped below the yield on the US 2-year bond Wednesday.
Investing professionals surveyed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch are the most bullish they've been since 2008.
Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP, said the trade war between the USA and China is the clear catalyst for the inversion.
The U.S. bond market has been a destination for haven flows given that there are fewer and fewer positive-yielding assets to park cash in globally, according to Richard Kelly, head of global strategy at Toronto-Dominion Bank. Weak economic data from Germany and China added to recent signals of a global slowdown.
If all the talk about yield curves sounds familiar, it should.
On rare occasions, some or all of the yield curve ceases to be upward sloping.
A bond yield is the return an investor gets on a government or corporate bond.
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Looking at history, every times the stocks and bonds behavior like this... a recession is on the rise. That's sending buyers from overseas into the USA bond market, putting extra pressure downward on US yields.
The global trade conflict is a factor for many economies.
Still, the warning signs are there, according to some experts.
No one knows when a bear market begins, but if the U.S. and China don't reach a trade agreement soon, the chance of one is highly likely.
The Federal Reserve's actions as it shrinks its balance sheet, inflated from years of bond buying under the central bank's quantitative easing program, may also be putting pressure on the curve.
Expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks would respond robustly to the recession warning helped world stocks to steady earlier.
Some even argue the yield curve has lost its predictive power, saying that yield curve inversions are bound to be more common when rates are at ultra-low levels. And last month, it made its first rate cut since the recession. "They often cut too little or too late".
In contrast, bonds that require investors to make shorter time commitments, say for three months, don't require as much sacrifice and usually pay less. "Then we recouped most of those losses over the next couple of days".
How anxious should you be? "Each one was followed by a recession".
The indicator isn't flawless, though, and it's given false signals in the past.
As bond markets flashed concern about recession on Wednesday and major stock indices cratered, US President Donald Trump put the blame squarely on the Fed for continuing to raise rates through the end of past year.
In the meantime, the inverted yield curve could mean a recession - but in two to three years, The Earnings Scout's Raich said.
Millions of USA workers lost their jobs in the recession a decade ago, as well as their homes, when they no longer had enough money to make monthly loan payments.
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