AI Analysis: Selected United States dollar interest rates, last Wednesday unless otherwise stated, Bank of Canada

Executive Summary

This Statistics Canada dataset (Table 10100123) tracks 14 U.S. dollar interest rate series recorded by the Bank of Canada across an extraordinary 101-year span from January 1925 to March 2026, encompassing 8,021 valid monthly observations. The data reveals dramatic monetary policy cycles, most notably the 1979–1982 peak where rates surged to a historic high of 21.50%, contrasted with near-zero rates in the post-2008 era and a sharp renewed climb in 2022–2023. Across all series, rates are strongly positively correlated, reflecting shared macroeconomic drivers, with an overall mean of 5.54% and significant variability (standard deviation of 3.31%).

Key Findings

• The dataset spans 101 years of monthly U.S. dollar interest rate data (January 1925 – March 2026), containing 8,021 valid observations across 14 distinct rate categories after filtering out 698 invalid placeholder values.
• The overall mean interest rate is 5.54% with a median of 5.28%, indicating a slight right skew driven by extreme high-rate periods, with values ranging from a near-zero 0.03% to a historic peak of 21.50% (Prime Rate).
• 89 data points exceed 15%, virtually all concentrated in the 1979–1982 era, representing the most dramatic anomaly in the century-long record.
• U.S. Treasuries Constant Maturity (Long Term) carries the highest average rate at 8.50%, while Commercial Paper (3-month) has the lowest average at just 2.28%, illustrating the persistent premium of long-duration instruments.
• The Federal Funds Rate and Prime Rate are the most historically complete series, with 857 and 844 data points respectively, making them the most reliable for long-term trend analysis.
• The correlation heatmap shows most of the 14 rate series are strongly positively correlated, reflecting common monetary policy drivers, with short-term vs. long-term rate pairs showing the greatest divergence during yield curve inversions.
• Recent data (2022–2023) shows a sharp upward spike visible at the right end of the historical trend chart, marking the most aggressive rate-hiking cycle since the early 1980s.