UK gilts trade steady ahead of 10-year auction, February manufacturing production

The United Kingdom’s gilts remained steady amid a silent trading session that witnessed data of little economic significance ahead of the country’s 10-year auction and manufacturing production for the month of February, scheduled to be released on April 9 and 10 by 09:45GMT and 08:30GMT respectively.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilts, hovered around 1.115 percent, the super-long 30-year bond yields remained flat at 1.656 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year traded tad lower at 0.715 percent by 11:20GMT.

All eyes in the coming week should be on Wednesday evening’s special EU summit to discuss the UK's request for an extension of the Article 50 deadline beyond this Friday. At the end of last week, Prime Minister Theresa May repeated last month’s request for a postponement to June 30 at the latest, Daiwa Capital Markets reported.

But, in order to reduce the risk of generating repeated bouts of uncertainty through a series of short extensions, EU President Tusk has reportedly proposed a longer 'flextension', with a delay perhaps of up to a year, but shorter if the UK approves the Withdrawal Agreement before that time.

France, Spain and Belgium, and to some extent the European Commission, however, all appear sceptical of the merits of the longer extension, wary of infecting the EU's processes with the UK's political poison, the report added.

Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 remained nearly flat at 7,454.86 by 11:25GMT, while at 11:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Pound Strength Index remained slightly bearish at -76.56 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex