Investors in Britain dumped bonds at the second highest rate on record as tariff wars raised expectations of an emergency US interest rate cut and cash was raised to meet margin calls caused by market turmoil.
Just over £1.2 billion was pulled from fixed income funds in April, according to data from Calastone, the global funds network, the fastest pace since the early days of the pandemic in April 2020.
A sweeping round of tariffs announced on April 2, which President Trump nicknamed “liberation day”, rattled investor confidence in the American economy, triggering a decline in the value of the dollar and a sell-off in US bonds.
Edward Glyn, head of global markets at Calastone, said that the turmoil in US bond markets had “pressured