Bear Stearns High Yield Index gains 0.65% in week to Jan. 5, now up 0.62% year to date

By Paul A. Harris

St. Louis, Jan. 6 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index gained 0.65% during the most recent week, upping the index's year-to-date return to 0.62%.

The gain follows the 0.03% loss reported during the final day of 2005. The last full week of 2005, ended Dec. 29, saw a 0.39% gain.

For the week, the index's yield-to-worst spread tightened by 2 basis points to 383 bps. The yield to worst decreased 8 bps on the week to 8.16%.

The index has now reported gains in 54 of the past 81 weeks.

All 11 industry sectors making up the index posted gains in the most recent week.

The consumer cyclical sector was the week's outperformer, returning 1.09% to end at 1.04% for the year to date, the greatest year-to-date return among the sectors thus far in 2006.

Its automobile manufacturing-related component led the advance by returning 1.94% on the week, beating all other index sub-sectors. The component ended the period with a 1.89% year-to-date return.

Only two sub-sectors posted losses during the most recent week: the telecommunications sector's long distance component, at negative 0.11%, and the media sector's radio broadcasting component, at negative 0.08%.

The market value of the index ended the week at $555.32 billion, down from the previous week's $562.36 billion. The number of issues increased by 56 issues to 1,691 issues.

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