Bear Stearns High Yield Index loses 0.08% in week to April 13, now up 2.80% year to date

By Paul A. Harris

St. Louis, April 17 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index dropped by 0.08% in most recent week ended Thursday, lowering its year-to-date return to 2.80%.

The move follows the previous week's 0.12% gain.

The index has now reported gains in 63 of the past 96 weeks.

For the most recent week, the index's yield-to-worst spread tightened by a single basis point to 335 basis points. The yield to worst widened by 11 bps to 8.32%.

Only three of the 11 industry sectors comprising the index made positive moves during the most recent week.

The biggest positive move came from the media sector, which returned 0.15% on the week, advancing its year-to-date return to 2.46%. The advance was led by its North American cable component's 0.88% return on the week, extending its year-to-date return to 3.44%.

Among the industry subsectors, the biggest gain on the week to April 13 was that of the telecommunications sector's ESMR & PCS component, which gained 1.15%, extending its year-to-date return to 2.60%.

Among the Bear Stearns High Yield Index industry sectors, the greatest loss on the week was suffered by the energy-oil & gas sector, which dropped by 0.45%, trimming its year-to-date return to 1.10%. Its pipeline-regulated component posted the sector's biggest loss, dropping 0.92% and sending the subsector into the red for 2006 to date at negative 0.14%.

The greatest year-to-date return among industry sectors remains that of transportation at 4.71%; it gained 0.12% on the week.

Transportation's airlines component leads all other index subsectors having gained 16.69% thus far into 2006. However airlines' return declined by 0.07% during the most recent week.

The airlines component comprises just 0.08% of the Bear Stearns index composite. Second place, in terms of year-to-date returns among the subsectors is held by the telecommunications sector's long distance component, which has generated a 9.41% return thus far into 2006, having ended the most recent week flat. Long distance comprises 0.72% of the Bear Stearns index composite.

The market value of the index ended the week at $570.55 billion, down from the previous week's $573.80 billion. The number of issues increased by seven to 1,669 issues.

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