The Week In Review: High Yield Corporate Bonds

Here's the week in review for the high yield corporate bond market:

During the trading week of January 30th, $30.037 billion of publicly-traded high yield corporate bonds (HYG) changed hands, versus $25.236 billion the week prior. Advancers outpaced decliners from Tuesday through Friday, and the ratio of advancers to decliners ended the week just off its high. The heaviest dollar volume of the week was on Friday, the same day as the lowest number of decliners. The dollar volume traded increased each day and closed the week at its high of $7.704 billion.

Below is a table outlining last week's pertinent bond-specific information from the high yield corporate bond (JNK) market:

High Yield	1/30/2012	1/31/2012	2/1/2012	2/2/2012	2/3/2012
Advancers	615	701	792	653	702
Decliners	647	550	516	527	459
Advancers / Decliners Ratio	0.951	1.275	1.535	1.239	1.529
Unchanged	74	97	71	127	74
Dollar Volume (Billions)	$3.297	$5.196	$6.220	$7.620	$7.704

In terms of the most actively traded issues, debt from the lowest reaches of non-investment grade dominated again this week. Two companies among the top two most actively traded issues from each day, ComEd Financing III and Frontier Communications (FTR), were exceptions. Their debt is rated Ba1/BB+ and Ba2/BB by Moody's (MCO) and S&P respectively, much higher than their counterparts on the list. Other well known companies with corporate notes appearing in the top 10 most actively traded high yield notes at some point during the week include: Sprint Capital Corp. (S), Chesapeake Energy (CHK), MGM Resorts International (MGM) and CIT Group (CIT).

Below is a table outlining the most actively traded and second most actively traded high yield corporates (PHB) of the week, broken down by day:

High Yield	Most Actively Traded	Second Most Actively Traded
Monday, 1/30/2012	ComEd Fin'g III, CUSIP: 20035AAA2	JBS USA (JBSAY.PK), CUSIP: 466112AC3
Tuesday, 1/31/2012	Energy Future Intermediate, CUSIP: 29269QAA5	Frontier Communications, CUSIP: 35906AAF5
Wednesday, 2/1/2012	First Data Corp., CUSIP: 319963AT1	Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ.PK), CUSIP: 5252M0BZ9
Thursday, 2/2/2012	Harrah's, CUSIP: 413627BM1	TXU Corp., CUSIP: 873168AQ1
Friday, 2/3/2012	TXU Corp., CUSIP: 873168AQ1	First Data Corp., CUSIP: 319963AV6

Disclaimer: The underlying data mentioned in this article came from FINRA's Trade Reporting and Compliance Engine (TRACE). I cannot vouch for the accuracy of FINRA's data.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.