Correlations-R-Us
UK 10-year gilt yield 2008-13 showing QE: Why is there an evident spike starting autumn 2010 and continuing until early 2011 when there was no QE? (larger version here ) . For comparison, US 10-year Treasury yield: (larger version here ) Correlation, wouldn't you say? (thanks to @wonkmonk_ for spotting this) Well, the US was doing QE at that time. Could the UK's spike be due to the US's QE program? That suggests markets were arbitraging away differences between US Treasury and UK gilts yields. In which case one or the other effectively has no control whatsoever of monetary policy. Hmmm. GBP/USD historical rates 2008-13: (larger version here ) Steady, really. So this could be arbitrage. But we don't know the direction - are USTs driving gilts or the other way round? Brent crude 2008-13: WTI crude 2008-13 (larger versions here and here ) If you remove the downwards trend on both US and UK charts (