Bear Stearns High Yield Index ends week with 7.77% year-to-date return

By Angela McDaniels

Seattle, Oct. 13 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index's return increased to 7.77% for the year to Oct. 12 from 7.55% a week earlier.

For the month to Oct. 12, the index return increased to 0.60% from 0.39% at Oct. 5.

During the most recent week, the yield to worst remained flat at 8.28%. Over the same period, the yield-to-worst spread tightened by 19 basis points to 349 bps.

For the month to Oct. 12, all 12 of the index industry sectors showed positive returns.

The health care sector was the outperformer for a second week with a 1.06% return for the month to Oct. 12. While its year-to-date return inched up to 0.85% from 0.47% last week, it remained the lowest among the sectors.

Two of the three highest-performing components in the index for the month to Oct. 12 were in the health care sector: specialty services with a 1.14% return and the suppliers and distributors component with a 1.58% return. The components' returns for the year to Oct. 12 were 4.05% and 10.37%, respectively.

Health care's diagnostic services component remains a drain on the sector, however. Its negative 4.85% month-to-date return was the lowest among the subsectors, as was its negative 13.37% year-to-date return.

Telecommunication's ESMR and PCS component had the highest month-to-date return at 5.67%. Its return for the year to Oct. 12 is 13.51%.

The transportation sector's flat return for the month rendered it the underperformer for the period among industry sectors. To Oct. 12, transportation's return for the year was 8.25%.

For the year to Oct. 12, the consumer cyclical sector showed the best return at 11.45% - boosted by the 17.88% return of its automobile manufacturing-related subsector, which makes up 14.48% of the Bear Stearns High Yield Index composite, and the 10.36% return of its restaurants subsector, which makes up 0.65% of the index composite.

Transportation's airlines component was far and away the outperformer among the subsectors for the year to Oct. 12 with a 26.5% return. The airlines component makes up 0.08% of the composite.

The telecommunications sector's long distance component came in second for the year to date at 19.86%, followed by the aforementioned 17.88% return of consumer cyclical's automobile manufacturing-related subsector. Long distance makes up 1.10% of the index composite.

At Oct. 12, the index had a market value of $581.63 billion and included 1,648 issues.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.