High yield spreads tightened and yields dropped yesterday as equities rallied, oil jumped more than 5% and money continued to trickle back into the asset class. The yield and spread on the index closed at 9.42% and +809bps, lower by 14bps each. Monday’s inflow total was $546 million into mutual and exchange traded funds and we’re now tracking at a weekly inflow total just over $1 billion. Despite better sentiment this week, the high-yield market is on pace to post its 8^th negative monthly return in the past nine months with the Bank of America High-Yield Index down 1.61% MTD amid a global equity meltdown and sustained pressure on energy credits. The market is opening unchanged this morning with equities and oil giving up some of yesterday’s gains in early trading, while gold and treasuries rally after China cut the yuan’s reference rate by the most in six weeks.

The Bank of America Merrill 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. Yield referenced is the yield-to-worst and spread referenced is the spread-to-worst.