A gilt is a UK Government liability in sterling, issued by HM Treasury and listed on the London Stock Exchange.
There are two main types of gilts: conventional gilts and index-linked gilts. More information on the different types can be found on the UK Debt Management Office website.
Financial Times
The FT publishes gilt prices daily, in the ‘Companies and Markets’ section of the paper. There are two tables containing gilt prices — one headed 'Gilts: UK Cash Market', and another headed 'Gilts: UK FTSE Actuaries Indices'. It should be noted, however, that these tables do not provide a comprehensive list of all UK gilts.
The online FT Data Archive (subscription required) contains PDF copies of the aforementioned tables, going back five years. These can be found in the ‘FT500, Fixed incomes, Commodities, Interest rates’ report, which comes under the ‘Popular print’ category.
In addition, the ICAEW Library aims to keep the last 6 months' worth of market data pages from the FT, and the Guildhall Library holds the FT in various formats back to 1888. Some other public libraries also hold copies of the FT, with varying temporal coverage.
UK Debt Management Office
The Debt Management Office (DMO) no longer produces daily end-of-day reference prices for gilts and Treasury bills — FTSE-Tradeweb (see below) succeeded the DMO as the administrator and publisher of these reference prices on 21st July 2017. However, the DMO website includes a database of historical gilt reference prices, covering the period from 12th July 1996 to 21st July 2017. The database can be used to generate a list of reference prices by business date and includes the ISIN Code, redemption date, clean price, dirty price, accrued interest, yield, and modified duration. It should be noted that these reference prices are indicative only, and do not constitute market prices at which a given gilt could or has been traded.
The DMO website also contains a number of other reports through which data on gilts can be accessed. These include:
- Estimated Market Value for Gilts — this provides ‘an indicative market value of a gilt based on the close of business reference price data available for the last working day’.
- DMO Gilt Purchase and Sale Service Prices — this provides daily data on the prices ‘available for that day's retail gilt purchase and sale transactions’.
FTSE-Tradeweb
End-of-day reference prices for gilts from 22nd July 2017 onwards can be accessed via the FTSE-Tradeweb website (registration required).
Access is free for non-commercial use from 12:00 noon on the day following initial publication.
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