Risk appetite · Updated every market day
US corporate credit spreads today
How much extra yield corporate bonds pay over Treasuries — investment grade and high yield, measured by the ICE BofA option-adjusted spread indices.
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Investment grade
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High yield
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What a credit spread is
When a company borrows, it pays the Treasury rate plus a premium for the risk that it might not pay you back. That premium is the credit spread, quoted in basis points (one basis point = 0.01%). An investment-grade spread of 96bp means high-quality corporate bonds yield about 0.96% more than comparable Treasuries; a high-yield ("junk") spread of 318bp means the riskiest tier pays about 3.18% extra.
Spreads are the bond market's fear gauge. In calm, greedy markets they compress — investors accept thin premiums to pick up yield. In stressed markets they blow out, sometimes violently: high-yield spreads have gone from under 300bp to over 1,000bp in past crises. Because spreads price risk itself, they often move before equity markets acknowledge trouble, which is why professionals watch them even when they own no corporate bonds.
How investors use them
For a bond buyer, the spread is your compensation for credit risk — so the question is always whether today's spread pays enough for it. Tight spreads (low numbers by historical standards) mean you're getting little extra for taking corporate risk, and staying in Treasuries or GICs costs you little. Wide spreads mean corporate bonds are on sale relative to their risk, which has historically been the better time to extend into credit. The gap between HY and IG tells its own story: when it stretches, markets are differentiating sharply between safe and risky borrowers — classic late-cycle behavior.
One caution for retail investors: index spreads describe the market average. Any individual bond can be priced far from fair — which, on retail-sized trades, is common. Comparing a specific quote against actual trade prints is exactly the fair-value tooling on our roadmap.
Spread moves and what drove them, every Sunday — the free Basispoint letter.