Bear Stearns High Yield Index drops 0.19% on week to Oct. 27, now 0.84% year to date

By Paul A. Harris

St. Louis, Oct. 28 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index lost 0.19% during the most recent week, trimming its year-to-date return to 0.84%.

The loss follows the previous week's 0.96% gain.

The index yield-to-worst spread tightened by three basis points to 380.

The index has now reported gains in 48 of the past 72 weeks. Thus far in 2005 the index has posted 24 positive weekly returns versus 19 negative ones.

Of the 11 industry sectors which comprise the index, 10 posted negative returns on the week.

The sole exception was the finance sector, which gained 0.37% during the period, upping its year-to-date return to 0.97%. That sector's so-called "other finance" component, comprised of specialty finance companies and non-sector specific real estate investment trusts, led the advance with a 0.70% gain on the week, cutting its year-to-date loss to negative 0.11%.

The week's index underperformer was the consumer non-cyclical sector, which dropped 0.54% and cut its year-to-date return to 1.61%. Its health care component suffered the greatest loss, dropping 0.78% to end the period with a year-to-date return of 2.0% even.

The biggest weekly gain among industry sub-sectors was that of the consumer cyclical's building materials component, which advanced 1.16% on the week, cutting its year-to-date loss to negative 2.30%.

The week's underperformer, among sub-sectors, was that of the media sector's publishing component, which gave up 1.16%, trimming its year-to-date return to 2.48%.

The telecommunication sector remains atop the heap on a year-to-date basis, now at 4.85%; however, it gave up 0.17% on the week. Its cellular component also remains far ahead of the pack at 13.29%, having ended the week flat.

The Bear Stearns index yield to worst widened by nine basis points on the week to 8.27%.

The market value of the index fell during the week to $578.81 billion, down from the previous week's $579.57 billion. The number of issues remained unchanged at 1,772 issues.

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