Bear Stearns High Yield Index finishes week to Aug. 24 showing 5.23% year-to-date return

By Paul A. Harris

St. Louis, Aug. 25 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index has returned 5.23% for the year to Aug. 24.

During the most recent week, the yield to worst widened by 3 basis points to 8.59%. Over the same period, the yield-to-worst spread widened by 7 bps to 378 bps.

For the month to Aug. 24 the index has returned 1.07%.

All 12 of the Bear Stearns index industry sectors remain in the black for the month to Aug. 24.

The month-to-date outperformer has been the utility sector, which has returned 1.36%, pushing its year-to-date return to 3.03%.

Both of the sector's components, independent power producers and regulated utilities, have posted strong August returns, with the former advancing 1.31% on the month to extend its year-to-date return to 2.98% and the latter advancing 1.47% on the month, extending its year-to-date return to 3.16%.

Among the index subsectors, the satellite component of the telecommunication sector has outperformed all others for the month by returning 2.41%, to extend its year-to-date return to 5.94%.

The underperforming sector for the month to Aug. 24 is transportation at 0.37%. However transportation's 8.08% year-to-dated return is second-best among the 12 industry sectors.

Transportation's airlines component, which represents only 0.09% of the Bear Stearns index composite, remains the year-to-date outperformer among all subsectors at 23.47%, having returned 0.89% on the month thus far.

The top performing sector year to date is the consumer cyclical sector at 8.45%. It is up 1.11% on the month.

Health care remains the year-to-date underperformer among the industry sectors. At negative 1.88%, it is the only one of the 12 sectors mired in red ink to this point in 2006. However health care has returned 0.94% on the month to Aug. 24.

The health care sector's hospital management component is the year-to-date underperformer among subsectors with a negative 7.33% return. However in the month to Aug. 24, the hospital management subsector returned 0.50%.

To Aug. 24, the index had a market value of $573.28 billion, and the issue count stood at 1,659 issues.

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