Bear Stearns High Yield Index finishes week with 7.55% year-to-date return

By Angela McDaniels

Seattle, Oct. 6 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index's return increased to 7.55% for the year to Oct. 5 from 7% a week earlier.

For the month to Oct. 5, the index return was 0.39%.

During the most recent week, the yield to worst shrank by 42 basis points to 8.28%. Over the same period, the yield-to-worst spread tightened by 41 bps to 368 bps.

For the month to Oct. 5, all 12 of the index industry sectors showed positive returns.

The health care sector's 0.68% month-to-date return rendered it the outperformer, but its year-to-date return remained the lowest among the sectors at 0.47%.

Health care's hospital management component led the advance with a 1.02% return for the month to Oct. 5 - the best among the subsectors - while its year-to-date return remains in the red at negative 4.02%.

The consumer cyclical sector's building materials component took second place among the subsectors with a 0.93% return for the month to Oct. 5, boosting its year-to-date return to 8.55%.

For the year to Oct. 5, the consumer cyclical sector showed the best return at 11.24% - led by the 17.99% return of its automobile manufacturing-related subsector, which makes up 14.48% of the Bear Stearns High Yield Index composite.

Transportation's airlines component was far and away the outperformer among the subsectors for the year to Oct. 5 with a 26.27% return. The airlines component makes up 0.08% of the composite.

The telecommunications sector's long distance component - which generated a 19.34% return and makes up 1.10% of the composite - rounded out the top three subsectors for the year to Oct. 5.

The transportation sector's flat return for the month rendered it the underperformer for the period among industry sectors. To Oct. 5, transportation's return for the year was 8.48%.

The health care sector's services-diagnostic component turned in the worst performance for the second week at negative 1.95% for the month. Its year-to-date return, negative 11.1%, is also the worst among the subsectors for the year to Oct. 5.

At Oct. 5, the index had a market value of $579.96 billion, and the issue count stood at 1,646 issues.

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