Bear Stearns High Yield Index returns 2.26% for year to mid-February, up 1.23% on month

By Paul A. Harris

St. Louis, Feb. 16 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index has returned 2.26% for the year to Feb. 15, having gained an even half a point during the most recent week.

The yield to worst as of Thursday was 7.59%, eight basis points tighter than one week previous.

The yield to worst spread tightened by 4 basis points to 286 basis points over the same period.

All 12 of the industry sectors that make up the index have posted positive returns for the month of February, and remain in the black year-to-date.

The technology sector turned in the best performance for the month to Feb. 15 with a 1.98% return during that period, extending its year-to-date gain to 2.43%.

The finance sector, on the other hand, lags the index for February thus far with a 0.12% return to the mid-month point. That sector also posts the most anemic return among all BSIX industry sectors thus far in 2007: 0.68%.

In terms of year-to-date returns among the industry sectors, basic materials maintains its lead with a return of 3.17%, up 1.25% on the month.

For the year to Feb. 15, only one of the Bear Stearns index sub-sectors has posted a double-digit return. The healthcare sector's services-diagnostic component has gained 14.48%, up 7.06% on the month. However that sub-sector posted a negative 10.36% return for all of 2006, the only one in the index to finish last year in the red.

Apart from services-diagnostic, the greatest year-to-date total return in the index comes from the telecommunications sector's ESMR & PCS component at 6.01%, up 4.23% for the month to Feb. 15. That return for the month is second only to the services-diagnostic sub-sector's 7.06% among all the BSIX sub-sectors.

As with the industry sectors, all of the sub-sectors post positive year-to-date returns at the mid-February mark.

However for the month to Feb. 15 a single sub-sector, healthcare's pharmaceuticals component, has skidded into the red by posting a negative 0.12% return, leaving it at 0.85% year-to-date.

On Feb. 15, the market value of the index stood at $621.24 billion, more than $2.9 billion higher on the week. The issue count was unchanged at 1,621.

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