Analysis & Comment:
Bond of the Week
27 Aug 2008 Gilts and other high-quality bonds continue to gain on outlook for lower UK interest rates...............
20 Aug 2008 Time to lock in some good yields? We buy the Next 5.25% 2013 for the model portfolio........................
13 Aug 2008 BoE's quarterly inflation forecast suggest dovish outlook for interest rates over the next two years. Longer dated gilts extend gains...................
7 Aug 2008 European Investment Bank trades the range..............
The Monthly Banker
14 Aug 2008 A very unhappy anniversary.................. July’s CPI report, published earlier this week, showed prices accelerating to a 4.4% year-on-year rate from 3.8% in June, a rate that translates to 5.0% when measured by the broader Retail Price Index.
22 Jul 2008
The phoney credit crunch............What is badly missing from the current debate on the credit crunch, and its likely macro economic fallout, is a sense of perspective. At one extreme we have predictions of a depression of 1930s proportions. At the other we have naturally contrary journalists..............
18 Jun 2008
Credit where credit’s due?.............As regular readers might have already guessed, I am not exactly the Bank of England’s number one fan......
19 May 2008 "Nobody likes a smart arse” or “a stitch in time saves nine”? Our economics correspondent vents his wrath on complacency at the BoE............. My anger is therefore not that I feel that the current level of interest rates is somehow inappropriate, but it is the sheer frustration that the Bank ignored very compelling evidence that price pressures were building. In fact many MPC members did rather more than merely ignore the evidence; they fostered a climate in which it almost became politically incorrect to question their orthodoxy.
Model Portfolio
8 Aug 2008 Bonds prices generally firmer on softer outlook for interest rates, but mark-to-market losses on PIBS holdings impact overall valuation.................
3 Jul 2008 Valuations lower across the board................
2 Jun 2008
The month has seen some fairly sharp falls in the price of government bonds as inflationary fears lower the hope for interest rate cuts. We have now given back much of our gains on our Gilt and EIB holdings, however the effect on the corporate and bank sector bonds has been mixed, with the downward shift in the yield curve offset by some recovery in selective credits
2 May 2008 There has been a considerable change seen in the tone of the bond markets from last month’s valuation. For the first time in some months, high quality bonds are drifting off, whilst the more speculative financial and corporate names recover ................