Bear Stearns High Yield Index up for sixth week, climbs 0.52%, now 5.17% better year to date

St. Louis, Sept. 10 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index continued upwards, adding 0.52% in the week ending Sept. 9 and extending its latest winning run to six weeks.

For 13 of the past 14 weeks the index has shown positive total returns and is now up 5.17% year to date. The latest rise comes after a gain of 0.36% the week before.

Bear Stearns analyst Mike Taylor, commenting on the latest week's performance, said that the continued strength of the asset class is a manifestation of money chasing yield.

"You're seeing that not just in high yield but in other asset classes such as emerging markets that are generally bid pretty well," Taylor said Friday.

"The force of money seeking yield is dominating all other factors, although the fundamentals in high yield are as strong as ever, as reflected in low default rates which will likely remain low for the next couple of years."

All 11 of the industry sectors making up the Bear Stearns index showed positive returns in the latest week.

The utility sector posted the week's top gain: 0.92%. The sector has returned 6.37% year to date.

Driving the gain was the independent power producers sub-sector which was 1.28% better on the week. Year to date that sub-sector has returned 5.36%.

Basic materials is the top sector year to date with an 8.46% gain, up 0.61% on week.

The strongest year-to-date sub-sector, textiles and apparel, is up 21.53% this year, including a gain of 0.09% on the week.

Meanwhile the transportation sector showed the smallest gain in the week at 0.09%, taking its year-to-date return to negative 15.22%.

Transportation sub-sector, airlines, was the week's biggest loser among the sub-sectors at negative 0.65% and leaving its year-to-date return at negative 34.95%.

The index's yield to worst ended the week at 7.66%, down seven basis points from 7.73% a week earlier. The yield-to-worst spread tightened by a 10 basis points to 429 from 439.

The index ended the week to Sept. 9 with a market value of $524.51 billion, up from $523.78 billion the previous week. However over the course of the week the number of issues decreased by six to 1,688 from 1,694.

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