The Bank of England said Tuesday that it will expand its daily U.K. bond purchase operations to include index-linked gilts, the second move this week aimed at trying to calm market volatility.
“These additional operations will act as a further backstop to restore orderly market conditions by temporarily absorbing selling of index-linked gilts in excess of market intermediation capacity,” the BoE said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it has also consulted with the Debt Management Office.
The inclusion of those index-linked bonds will run from Oct. 11 to 14, alongside its existing daily conventional gilt purchase auctions, the BoE said.
But it remained to be seen if a second-day move by the central bank to calm markets will be effective.
Investors are anxiously looking ahead to Friday, when the central bank’s emergency bond-buying program announced last month are scheduled to end. The BoE announced additional measures on Monday to smooth that path, but the yield on the 30-year gilt
TMBMKGB-30Y,
jumped 29 basis points to 4.68% on Monday.
While that’s still below the 5.17% peak, it indicates concerns about the imminent end to the central bank’s program were causing fear in the market. The yield on the 10-year gilt
TMBMKGB-10Y,
which the central bank has not been buying, rose 24 basis points to 4.47%
On Monday, the BoE said it would boost the size of its daily gilt purchases and implement extra measures “to support an orderly end” to its emergency bond-buying plans.
It now will buy up to £10 billion ($11 billion) in bonds, up from a previous auction limit of £5 billion ($5.5 billion), though sticking with its pricing policy that has seen the central bank refuse many of the bonds put up for auction.
The BoE also said Monday that it plans to to launch a temporary expanded collateral repo operation for liability-driven investment funds through liquidity insurance operations, which will run beyond the end of this week.
LDI funds are a popular product sold by asset managers like BlackRock
BLK,
Legal & General
LGEN,
and Schroders
SDR,
to pension funds, using derivatives to help them match assets and liabilities so there is no risk of shortfall in money to pay pensioners.
But those measures failed to stop bond yields from surging, amid market fears that the pension fund market is not yet ready for that temporary debt purchase program to end.
