UK gilts surge despite promising June employment report; July CPI in focus

The United Kingdom’s gilts surged during European trading hours Tuesday even as the country’s employment report for the month of June, appealed promising to market investors ahead of the consumer price inflation (CPI) data for July, scheduled to be released on August 14 by 08:30GMT.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilts, suffered nearly 1-1/2 basis points to 0.476 percent, the 30-year yield slumped 3 basis points to 1.141 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year traded tad down at 0.436 percent by 11:10GMT.

The latest UK labour report did little to change the narrative that outside of Brexit-related concerns, underlying trends in the economy remain upbeat. Employment continued to rise, increasing by 115k in the three-months to June, beating market expectations of a 60k increase, Lloyds Bank reported.

Despite the above-expectation rise in employment, however, it is worth noting that the unemployment rate moved up to 3.9 percent from 3.8 percent previously, marking its first increase since Q3 of last year. This reflected the fact that the 115k rise in employment was insufficient to account for the flow of people entering the labour market, either from previously being inactive or from the increase in working-age population, the report added.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 traded tad -0.42 percent lower at 7,197.24 by 11:15GMT.