US stops buying bonds - but pension schemes carry on After a decade-long gilt bull market, the tide has turned and bond yields have started to rise. But just as savvy investors sell off the asset, insurance companies and pension funds invested £1.3 trillion in gilts in 2012, a rise of 8pc on the previous year, taking their holdings in gilts to record highs. Oren Laurent, the head of Banc De Binary, said: "While gilts have always been an important part of institutional investors' portfolios, over the last few years they have been piling out of equities and into UK government debt on a massive scale." But not for the first time, it seems that they have timed the market badly. In a bid to offer investors some balance against the volatility of the stock market, private and institutional investors have snapped up gilts since the credit crisis. But after a decade-long bull market, during which 15-year gilt yields fell from 6pc to 2pc, yields are now on the rise again. Mr Laurent added: "The high price of gilts is not sustainable and we have already seen one big tremor hitting gilt prices this year. With yields this low, more investors view gilts as overpriced and a fall in their value could well be on the cards. He said this could be the signal for institutional investors to start to re-evaluate bond holdings in their portfolios.