PrefBlog

Has the tide turned for junk bonds?

The biggest buyers of junk bonds are in retreat as exchange-traded funds suffer unprecedented withdrawals with the debt facing its first losses in eight months.

The outflows sent the combined value of the five biggest junk-debt funds down 7 percent from a four-month high in January to $29.8 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. State Street Corp.’s $11.9 billion fund reported withdrawals of about $988 million in the 12 days ended Feb. 13, the longest stretch since August 2011.

A pullback three times bigger than that for mutual funds which cater to individuals suggests investors such as hedge funds and banks are cherry picking rather than investing in the broader market, said Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors. Almost six years after the first high-yield ETF was created, the funds have been drawing the interest of institutions seeking rapid entries and exits with securities that traditionally were traded over the counter.

The best story I’ve seen so far on the Russian meteorite explosion was in Cracked, an irreverent internet humour site.

It was an unevenly positive day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualPremiums gaining 1bp, FixedResets winning 23bp and DeemedRetractibles up 6bp. Volatility picked up a bit. Volume was quite high.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2013 at 12:39 am and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.