A Little Firmer On ECB Speak, Broader Risk Events Set To Dominate Today

The late Thursday rally in wider bonds & early Friday ECB speak supports gilts, albeit with familiar ranges intact and moves contained.

• Gilt futures last +19 at 99.52 (early 99.49-69 range).
• Initial technical resistance at yesterday’s high (99.88) and support at the Mar 5 low (98.33).
• This week’s rally has eased bearish pressure in the contract and bulls will want to clear 100.00.
• Cash gilt yields are 1-2bp lower, light bull steepening.
• Bulls will want to close the Feb 5 opening gap higher in 10s (3.918%), with the benchmark last trading at 3.98%.
• SONIA futures off early highs, last flat to +3.0.
• BoE-dated OIS shows ~62.5bp of ’24 cuts, sticking to familiar ranges.
• The UK release calendar is empty ahead of the weekend, which will leave focus on wider risk events (including U.S. NFPs) and cross-market flow.
• Next week's UK releases include labour market, GDP and monthly economic activity data.
• Next week will also see comments from BoE hawk Mann and the release of the Bank's inflation attitudes survey.