UK gilts gain ahead of BoE MPC members’ speeches

The United Kingdom’s gilts gained during European trading hours Wednesday ahead of a host of speeches by members of the Bank of England’s (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), all due to be delivered through this week, for further direction in the debt market.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilts, lost nearly 2 basis points to 0.504 percent, the 30-year yield also suffered 2 basis points to 0.942 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year slumped 2-1/2 basis points to 0.363 percent by 11:35GMT.

Global equity markets remained under pressure on rising fears that the virus outbreak is close to becoming a pandemic. The 10-yr UST yield hit a fresh all-time low slightly below 1.31 percent yesterday, while the 10-yr Bund yield reached a trough of -0.52 percent earlier today, the lowest since mid-October 2019, Eurobank Economic Analysis & Financial Markets Research reported.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 slipped tad -0.52 percent to 6,981.11 by 11:40GMT.