The great decoupling

This podcast is supported by Odoo. Some say Odoo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because the simple efficient software promotes growth. Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. And some describe Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more as building blocks for creating a custom software suite. So Odoo is fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Odoo, exactly what businesses need. Sign up at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. This marketplace podcast is supported by Wealth Enhancement who ask, do you have a blueprint for your money? Wealth Enhancement can help you build the right blueprint for investing, retirement, tax, and more. With offices nationwide, there's an advisor who's ready to listen and craft a blueprint for your future. Find out more at wealthenhancement.com/build. On the program today, the bond market, AI, small businesses, and Botox in that order. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Risdall. It is Tuesday today. This one is the December 9. Good as always to have you along, everybody. We all wanna know which way the economy's going. Right? I think that's a pretty uncontroversial thing to say. And to find out, you could, for instance, ask an economist friend what they think, maybe a Wall Street banker if you know one, or better yet, a small business person. You could also clue into the Federal Reserve tomorrow when the central bank is gonna release its summary of economic projections where they think rates and a bunch of other parameters are headed. You could also, though, if you are of a mind, look at the bond market. Demand for short term treasury bills and longer term bonds at either end of what is known as the yield curve can tell us a lot about what investors are expecting. But there is a part of that yield curve that we don't often talk about, medium term treasuries, sometimes known as the belly of the curve. And as marketplace's Justin Ho reports now to get us going, that belly has been sending some signals of its own. The government issues treasuries that mature in anywhere from less than a year to ten and even thirty years. So the belly of the curve is basically everything in the middle. We tend to focus on two year and and five year notes. That's Chris Lowe, chief economist at FHN Financial. He says yields on treasuries in that belly of the curve are influenced by what investors expect the Federal Reserve to do in that two to five year time frame. They anticipate. So when we talk about the Fed might cut rates at an upcoming meeting or they might not, well, we're anticipating not just the next one, but the next several years' worth. Investors know that the Federal Reserve is still trying to bring rates down to a neutral level to support full employment and stable inflation. And if investors …