Prices of risky US companies’ debt have risen sharply this year as investors bet the Federal Reserve will bring inflation under control without triggering a damaging recession.
Yields on US junk bonds — debt sold by businesses with low credit ratings — have fallen by more than one percentage point since the end of 2022, according to an Ice Data Services index, trading at an average of 7.97 per cent. The decline reflects a sharp increase in prices.
In turn, the gap between junk yields and those of US government bonds has narrowed by more than 0.8 percentage points to less than 4 percentage points — the first time it has sat below that level since last April.