WEEK AHEAD: The week ahead should be a bit....>

GILTS: WEEK AHEAD: The week ahead should be a bit less eventful in the gilt

market but there will still be a few events which are definitely worth watching.

First, on Tuesday we will receive the details of the gilts to be issued in the

first week of May. Two short conventional auctions, a medium conventional

auction and a long conventional auction are scheduled for 5 and 6 May.

- The details of the gilt issuance calendar covering the GBP180bln issuance to

be conducted between May to July are out Thursday. What we are most interested

in is how heavy the issuance will be in favour of building benchmark issues and

how much will be taps of non-benchmarks. Within the remit announcement, the DMO

stated that it would launch two issues per year of key maturities (i.e. 5 year,

10 year, 30 year) so there could be scope for issuance to be more targeted to

benchmark building than has been the case in April.

- On Friday the Bank of England will give an update on its week ahead QE

purchases. We think that the GBP13.5bln pace will continue but this will no

longer outpace issuance to the same extent as during April. However, we think

that this will still be enough for the market to function successfully.