Protect yourself from an exploding gilt bubble

With yields on ten-year gilts falling, UK government bonds are proving very popular. But the bubble could burst at any time, says John Stepek. Here's why - and how to protect your wealth.

Back in January 2010, US bond investor Bill Gross warned that UK gilts were "resting on a bed of nitro-glycerine". He said the country was a "must to avoid".

Since then, the yield on the ten-year gilt has dropped from 3.7% to around 1.7%. In other words, the price has risen. Anyone invested in gilts made money. Even the exchange rate hasn't shifted much.

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.