UK gilts plunge on improving investors’ sentiments over Brexit negotiations; eyes on manufacturing production

The UK gilts plunged Tuesday as investors’’ worries over Brexit agreement eased to a certain extent, thus waning them away from safe-haven instruments. Also, investors shall remain keen to watch the country’s manufacturing production and trade balance data, due on January 10 for further direction in the debt market.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilts, jumped 2 basis points to 1.25 percent, the super-long 30-year bond yields also climbed 2 basis points to 1.79 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year traded nearly 1-1/2 basis points higher at 0.52 percent by 09:55GMT.

The BRC Retail Sales monitor released overnight brought mixed messages about the strength of consumer spending over the festive period. In nominal terms, sales growth in December remained little changed from the previous month at 1.4 percent y/y on a total basis and 0.6 percent y/y on a like-for-like basis. Against a backdrop of deteriorating consumer sentiment and falling average real incomes, retailers certainly might have done a lot worse than achieve such growth rates, which broadly matched the respective averages over the past year.

However, the three-month rate was only 1.1 percent 3m/y, the slowest since Q1, and the headline figures masked very significant variation across the different sectors. Indeed, judging from this survey, nominal sales growth in the past few months was driven exclusively by the food category, which rose by 4.2 percent 3m/y. But rapidly rising prices in such more-essential categories left less money available for other items, and spending on non-food items declined 1.4 percent 3m/y, the steepest drop in the survey since early 2009.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 traded 0.30 percent higher at 7,720.00 by 09:55 GMT, while at 09:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Pound Strength Index remained neutral at -38.43 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex

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