Bonds: Eurozone CPI data drive inflation expectations lower

These were the movements in the most-widely followed longer-term sovereign bond yields:

US: 1.71% (-4bp)

UK: 1.36% (+0bp)

Germany: 0.14% (-2bp)

France: 0.51% (-0bp)

Spain: 1.61% (-2bp)

Italy: 1.51% (-2bp)

Japan: -7bp (-1bp)

Portugal: 3.33% (-13bp)

Greece: 10.65% (-2bp)

Gilts underperformed as a wave of buying swept over global sovereign debt markets on Thursday, with the latest consumer price data in the euro area coming in below economists´ forecasts - a none too frequent occurrence - and on the back of 'dovish' remarks from one of the Fed´s up until now most hawkish rate-setters.

Eurozone consumer prices advanced at a 0.3% year-on-year clip in January, down from the preliminary estimate of 0.4% published on 29 January.

That drove the five-year/five-year forward inflation swap rate to 1.37%, on track for its lowest level on a closing basis since 2004, according to Bloomberg data.

In remarks to CNBC, the president of the Federal Reserve bank of St.Louis, James Bullard, said: "another interest rate increase would be "unwise" at the moment because of falling inflation expectations, which worried him.

Acting as a backdrop, Citi´s chief economist, William Buiter, said risks were rising that "genuine" world growth, taking into account the probable mis-measurement of China´s gross domestic product, would dip below a 2.0% year-on-year clip.

That rate of growth was considered by some to be the threshhold for recessions at the global level.

The yield on Japanese 40-year government bonds succumbed to the recent drag from the Bank of Japan´s move to negative interest rates, falling below 1.0%, to 0.99%, alongside the rest of the country´s debt instruments, Bloomberg reported citing Bank of America-Merrill Lynch´s chief Japan rates strategist.