Chart Book | Chart of the day: More downside seen for gilts

A rate cut by the Bank of England? Certainly not, seeing as since the financial crisis it has been warning, not threatening, that the key interest rate will soon return to a more normal level from a record-low 0.5 per cent. Gilts, Britain's sovereign debt, have taken matters into their own hands, pushing benchmark two-year yields to a record-low 0.025 per cent in 2012 and back up to nearly 1 per cent last year before falling to 0.3 per cent in January. Gapping up through the central bank's rate cut as expectations changed, they crashed this month as a possible rate cut did the rounds. A drop to 0.3 per cent looks imminent and a return to 2013's low of 0.15 per cent is possible.