Guides to gilts and to using GiltIQ, written against the site's own data and pages.
New to GiltIQ, or stuck on a page? Start with the comprehensive Help — one walkthrough of everything the site does, from the market pages to the trade ledger and the reports.
The lump sum mode takes a stated amount to invest and builds the rungs it buys — one per year, each sized so its redemption funds an inflation-uplifted draw — and the guide walks from the inputs to the rungs and the trades.
At its longest window the coupon calendar lists every coupon and redemption falling due in the next twelve months, so a reader can map a whole year of gilt income dates rather than a season.
The coupon calendar lists every coupon and redemption falling due in a rolling window across the whole gilt market, grouped by month and sized for a nominal holding, so a reader can see what income lands and when.
The ladder designer applies a marginal tax rate to the rungs' coupon income, so this article shows what a stated band does to that income while the redemption-funded draw — a return of capital — is left untouched.
A ladder of conventional gilts pays fixed cash amounts, so at an assumed inflation rate the purchasing power of each year's income falls — and this article works that drag year by year with the assumptions stated.
Running the same ladder once as a lump sum and once as an income target shows the two modes are inverse views of one calculation, reconciling to within the rounding of each rung.
Lengthening a ladder spreads the same lump sum over more rungs, so a fixed amount stretched across more years affords a smaller income each year but pays it for longer — and the gilt curve decides how much a longer rung yields.
A gilt's coupon is income and the £100 it returns at maturity is capital, so the coupon calendar lists them as separate rows and never nets a redemption against a tax band.
Income per £100 is the annual coupon a gilt pays on £100 of face value, and scaling it by the nominal a reader holds turns a rate into the actual cash the coupon delivers.
Each rung of a GiltIQ ladder is sized so its redemption principal funds that year's income draw while its coupon arrives as extra income, which is why the reinvestment of each maturity — not the coupon — is what keeps the ladder running.
A ladder's length sets how many years it covers and how many rungs it wants, while the inflation assumption uplifts each year's target income — and because the gilt universe has gaps, some years resolve to no conventional gilt and the rung stays empty.
The ladder designer is one calculator in two modes — income target solves the lump sum a target income needs, while lump sum solves the income a stated lump sum affords — so each mode is the other's question run backwards.