Guides to gilts and to using GiltIQ, written against the site's own data and pages.
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A guide to how an index-linked gilt turns a fixed real coupon into cash that moves with the Retail Prices Index, why an eight-month or three-month lag sits between the prices and the payment, and what the gilt does not do.
A reference to the est. marker GiltIQ puts against a projected index-linked coupon, what it means, what it does not mean, and how to tell a scaled figure from a projected one on a cash-flow table.
An index-linked gilt's cash coupon is its real coupon multiplied by the index ratio, and working one payment through from two index values to pounds shows exactly where every input comes from and which of them can move.
The UK Statistics Authority intends to bring CPIH's methods and data sources into the Retail Prices Index, a change HM Treasury says can legally and practically be made in February 2030 — and the announcement is a statement about how a series is constructed, not a forecast of what it will measure.
An index-linked gilt's clean price can be quoted with the inflation uplift inside it or with the uplift taken out, and the two figures differ by the index ratio — which is why the basis matters as much as the number.
Both kinds of index-linked gilt scale their coupon and redemption by the index ratio, and the difference between them is the indexation lag — which decides which month's RPI a payment points at, when that figure is published, and whether the quoted clean price has the inflation uplift inside it.
Implied RPI is the inflation a gilt's real and nominal yields together imply over its remaining life, which is a market price rather than a forecast and a different kind of number from the published RPI annual rate.
An index-linked gilt multiplies both its coupon and its redemption by the index ratio, the figure that records how far prices have risen since the gilt was first issued.
A ladder does not always pay an identical amount every year — an empty rung, declining coupons or a target that rises faster than the cash can leave a year short — and the projection shows which years miss the target and by how much.
An index-linked gilt's coupon and redemption are scaled by the index ratio, so an index-linked rung's real income is stated in present-day terms and its cash grows with published inflation rather than staying fixed.
A ladder spreads maturities so capital returns a rung at a time, while a single gilt pays level coupons and returns its whole principal once — and the income per year differs because the ladder's early rungs stop paying when they redeem.
A ladder can spread coupon and redemption cash across calendar years, so reading each year's coupon and redemption split shows a smoother flow than a single gilt's one large repayment.