High yield bonds yields continued to widen throughout the week as the 10-year note hovered around 2%, and flows out of the asset class accelerated, causing pressure on the secondary market. For the week, the yield on the Bank of America High Yield Index widened 12bps to 5.97% and is now 37bps wider from the all-time low of 5.60% set on Jan 25^th, while the spread on the index widened 13bps over the week to 509bps over Treasuries. For performance, the Bank of America High Yield Index returned -0.38%, lowering the year-to-date total to 1.04%.

As mentioned, high yield outflows accelerated this week to -$1.4 billion, the largest outflow since June ’12 and after four straight weekly inflows.  The high yield primary market remained steady over the week despite negative returns and outflows from the asset class, printing 15 deals for $6.625 billion in proceeds, underlining the continued strong demand for yield.

The Bank of America Merill Lynch High Yield Index monitors the performance of below investment grade U.S. dollar-denominated corporate bonds publicly issued in the U.S. domestic market.  Index data sourced from Bloomberg.