UK gilts surge ahead of BoE Governor Carney’s speech amid muted trading session

The United Kingdom’s gilts surged during Tuesday’s afternoon session ahead of the Bank of England (BoE) Governor Mark Carney’s speech, scheduled to be delivered today by 15:20GMT amid a silent trading day that witnessed data of little economic significance.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilts, slumped 3 basis points to 1.501 percent, the super-long 30-year bond yields fell 2 basis points to 1.902 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year traded nearly 1-1/2 basis points lower at 0.755 percent by 10:30GMT.

After Sunday’s special CBI survey highlighted that a striking 80 percent of businesses have delayed or cancelled investment because of Brexit, today’s regular update of the CBI’s industrial trends survey for the month of October suggested that little has changed in the manufacturing sector over recent months, registering -6, worse than market expectations of and from September’s -1.

Indeed, the October monthly survey indices for new orders and selling prices both seem likely to remain close to the bottom of the range of the past couple of years. And the quarterly survey index for business optimism similarly seems likely to remain close to the both of the range of the past two years, albeit above the initial post-referendum reading in July 2016, Daiwa Capital Markets reported.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 fell 0.76 percent to 6,989.22 by 10:30GMT, while at 10:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Pound Strength Index remained highly bearish at -114.14 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex