Bear Stearns High Yield Index down for fourth week, drops 2.70%

New York, Oct. 11 - The Bear Stearns High Yield Index dropped sharply in the week just completed and recorded its fourth consecutive decline.

For the seven days to Oct. 10, the index fell 2.70%, dragging its year-to-date return down to negative 10.77%. That year-to-date performance is the biggest loss so far recorded in 2002 for the weekly reports, below the previous low of negative 9.20% at the end of the week to Aug. 16.

The latest decline follows weekly drops of 1.28%, 1.41% and 0.56% in the preceding weeks.

Thanks to the most recent fall, the index's total market value slipped below $300 billion.

For the third week in a row, all 11 industry sectors making up the index recorded losses in the seven-day period.

Worst was utilities, which fell 9.38%, taking the year-to-date loss to 31.90%.

On a year-to-date basis, telecommunications remains the bottom performer with a loss of 49.60% after declining 3.89% in the week just gone.

The best performer in the week to Oct. 10 was finance, the second consecutive week it has been the least worst sector. For the most recent seven days it declined 0.31% and is now down 1.99% so far in 2002.

Year to date consumer cyclicals remain on top with a 4.58% return after a decline of 1.91% in the most recent week.

By narrow sub-sector the worst performer was towers, down 7.60%. (The utilities group is not sub-divided by Bear Stearns.) Towers are now down 33.96% so far this year.

The best performer was broadband access and internet services, up 0.38% in the week but still down 49.81% year to date.

For 2002 so far the worst performing sub-sector remains long distance with a 73.87% loss after falling a further 0.65% in the week to Oct. 10.

The best of the sub-sectors is diversified programmers, up 35.82% after rising 0.29% in the week just gone.

For the week, the index's yield to worst rose 73 basis points to 14.74% from 14.01% seven days earlier. The yield-to-worst spread widened 76 basis points to 1,184 compared to 1,108 basis points the week before.

The index's overall market value slipped below $300 billion, dropping to $298.295 billion in 1,443 issues, less value but the same number of issues as the $306.313 billion in 1,443 issues a week earlier.

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