Last piece of entertainment: 100 year gilts

The UK announcement that it would start offering sovereign bonds with a maturity of 100 years was greeted with a lukewarm reception by investors. It reminds some of us of the perpetuities issued in 1752 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Henry Pelham which started as 3.5% annuities and, after a series of "consolidations", ended up with coupons of 2.50%. Truth be told, now with the inflation monster surfacing more and more, issuing 100 year debt without inflation links is nothing more than a bad joke.

Qvo vadis, Gold ?

The precious metals have been under fire recently, with gold dropping from its all-time high of $1920 close to its 200 daily Exponential Moving Average which acted as support level for such movements since early 2008. It spiked downwards beneath the 200d EMA for a brief period to its recent low of $1533 after quickly recovering ground and consolidating in the $1610-$1690 interval.