One of the US bond market’s most widely watched indicators of potential recession risk has reached levels last seen in 2007.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note moved to be as much as 10 basis points below the 2-year rate, eclipsing the 9.5-basis-point gap reached in early April. 

So-called inversions of the yield curve — situations in which longer-term rates are below those on shorter-dated maturities — are often seen by observers as a potential harbinger of recession, and the spread between 2 years and 10 years is one of the most widely watched. The last time this particular yield curve was inverted was in 2007, before the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

The current inversion comes amid increasing concern that measures taken by central banks to rein in inflation might end up putting the economy into recession. That fear has helped drive a rebound in Treasury prices that’s taken the benchmark 10-year rate from around 3.5% in mid-June to around 2.91% on Tuesday. The two-year yield, meanwhile, was around 3.01%.