Yields rose, prices dropped and spreads widened over the past week after rallying for most of October amid volatile stocks, weakening oil and another modest outflow from retail funds. The yield to worst and spread on the Bank of America High-Yield Index (BAML) winded 23bps/14bps since last Fridays close ending the week at 6.18%/+476 respectively. Treasury yields continued to widen over the past week with the yield on the 10yr note pushing out 11bps to close at 1.85%, wider now by 27bps for the month. WTI closed at $49.72, down 2.2% from last Friday’s close.

Lipper reported an outflow of $48 million from exchange traded and mutual funds for the week ended Oct 26 after reporting a small inflow last week, and small outflows the prior two weeks. Fund flows have been choppy and anemic this month, though remain solidly in the positive on a YTD basis. High-yield new issuance picked up the pace this week with ten deals for $6.995 billion pricing, making it the busiest week since mid-September. Issuance this week included CCC credits, unrated deals, two deals done to fund dividend payments and a leveraged buyout deal. 25 deals for $13.465 billion is the final tally for October issuance pushing the YTD total to 297 deals for $195.31 billion.

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. BAML HY represents the index yield for the designated date, while return/change represent the index return for the period ending date. Yield referenced is the yield-to-worst and spread referenced is the spread-to-worst.