Bear Stearns High Yield Index rises for seventh week with 0.64% gain

New York, Oct. 3 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index continued its recent extended upward move, returning 0.64% for the seven days to Oct. 2.

That rise is the seventh consecutive positive week for the index and pushes the year-to-date total return to 21.90%.

The latest gain comes after positive moves of 0.27%, 0.60%, 0.64%, 1.18%, 1.04% and 1.87% in the weeks before that.

All 11 industry sectors making up the index recorded gains in the week just finished.

Energy - oil and gas was the strongest performer with a 0.97% rise taking its year-to-date performance to 14.78%.

But for the year so far the utility sector remains in front with a 43.73% return after adding 0.84% in the week to Oct. 2.

The smallest gain was in basic materials, which moved up just 0.04% for a year-to-date return of 11.43%.

Consumer non-cyclicals remains in last place among the 11 sectors for the year so far but has still returned 11.08% after adding 0.84% in the most recent period.

Long distance was by far the top performer among the narrow sub-sectors making up the broader industry groups. It gained 3.59% in the most recent week, extending its return since Jan. 1 to 71.98%, easily the strongest of any of the sub-sectors.

Of the five sub-sectors showing losses in the week, textile and apparel showed the biggest drop, giving up 1.16% and making it the only sub-sector in the red for the year so far with a 0.28% loss.

The index ended the week with a market value of $474.31 billion in 1,634 issues, both up from $467.84 billion in 1,629 issues the week before.

The index's yield to worst ended the week at 8.68%, down 11 basis points from 8.79% the week before, while the yield to worst spread edged two basis points wider to 581 basis points from 579 basis points.

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