Gilts cross six per cent as the bond sale spreads

Gilts cross six per cent

Britain now pays 6% to borrow. This is Money reported on Thursday evening that the UK had become the first major economy to do so since the eurozone crisis. A bond market rout had pushed gilt yields to their highest level since 1998. City A.M. had flagged the move that morning, as gilt yields topped six per cent amid a global sell-off. Its headline called it a headache for Healey.

The Guardian placed the British move inside a wider sale. It described the global bond sell-off as intensifying, with UK long-term borrowing costs climbing alongside American ones. The Wall Street Journal looked to the Continent. It named France as ground zero in the global rout, and by the evening its markets desk was describing the whole affair as getting messy. A separate Journal piece pointed to a single datapoint that it said could explain the soaring yields. The vocabulary varied from paper to paper. The direction did not.

Equities did not escape. City A.M. reported that the FTSE 100 had suffered its worst single-day sell-off since May.

Higher borrowing costs were already showing up closer to home. The Guardian, reporting Nationwide figures, said UK house price growth had halved amid rising mortgage interest rates. This morning City A.M.'s live coverage expected London stocks to rebound after the bond rout.

Washington, the dollar and oil

America had its own milestone. The Guardian reported that US borrowing costs hit a 24-year high as the sell-off intensified. Thursday's trading in New York did not run in a straight line, however. The Wall Street Journal's live coverage described the Treasury selloff flipping during a volatile session. Its closing report had US stocks rising after the bond market turned in choppy trading.

The dollar moved with the rate expectations. The Journal reported it at a near 18-month high on the prospect of higher US rates. Gold went the other way. In Asian hours on Friday the metal fell, and the Journal named the dollar and yields as the key obstacles to any gain in its price.

Oil is the awkward piece. City A.M. reported this morning that crude had breached $102. The Journal, for its part, observed that the bond rout was deepening even as oil tankers returned to the Strait of Hormuz. Ships were moving again; the selling in bonds carried on regardless.

On its opinion pages the Journal ran a piece on what it called the other threat to Fed independence. Among individual shares, Accenture surged, with City A.M. reporting that the consulting group had shrugged off the worst of the fears about artificial intelligence. Not every comment on the technology was so settled. The Bank of England's boss warned that the AI boom could trigger market shocks, according to the BBC.

Courts, takeovers and pensions

Shareholders in Home REIT, the scandal-torn homelessness firm, have launched a High Court compensation bid over alleged misleading statements. This is Money reported the action. City A.M. put the number of investors bringing claims in the hundreds.

A far larger investor scandal is unfolding in Turkey. Deutsche Welle reported that a stock market scandal there affects nearly half a million investors. Police have made several arrests, and an AKP politician has resigned.

Elsewhere in corporate news, a UBS shareholder called for the bank to leave Switzerland, according to the Journal. City A.M. reported that the billionaire Weston family was closing in on a £7bn takeover of Boots. Pensions made the news twice. The BBC reported a pension topping £16,000 a year after a 4.7% increase, while City A.M. described Tory infighting erupting over a triple lock pension petition.

In Asia the coverage was quieter. The South China Morning Post set out five figures investors are watching in China, running from stock losses to bond bets. It also reported that China's quant funds were thriving amid tight regulatory scrutiny, and asked whether a DeepSeek effect lay behind it. A third piece followed the investor dubbed China's Warren Buffett, who has added Moutai shares for a third time as the baijiu sector seeks a bottom.