HIX News and Press, Western Asset High Income Fund II Inc. From 06/04/21

Risk-adjusted performance for the Global Market Index (GMI) continued to tick higher in May. GMI’s Sharpe ratio — a measure of risk-adjusted return – rose to 0.82 on a trailing 10-year basis through last month. That’s close to a pandemic high, but still...

The Global Market Index’s (GMI) expected risk premium held steady at 5.9% annualized in May, matching the previous month’s estimate. The framework for estimating equilibrium returns was initially outlined in a 1974 paper by Professor Bill Sharpe. Keep in mind, too, t...

The major asset classes delivered across-the-board gains for a second month in a row in May. Everything apart from cash was up last month, led by a sizzling rally in foreign inflation-linked government bonds. The FTSE Russell World Inflation Index ex-US surged 4.0% last month, the...

HIX is heavily invested in various fixed-income securities, which could come under pressure in a period of higher inflation or rising interest rates. HIX has been able to weather the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic exceptionally well over the last year. The fund offers a month...

Legg Mason Partners Fund Advisor, LLC announced today that certain closed end funds have declared their distributions for the months of June, July, and August 2021. The following dates apply to the distribution schedule below: This press release is not for tax reporting purposes...

Diversification remains key. Flexible strategies can also take advantage of a more uncertain yield and spread environment. We continue to find reasonable opportunity in both public and private credit markets. We find value in non-agency mortgages and prefer cyclicals to growth sto...

Today's post rolls out the inaugural Risk Review column for the major asset classes, a monthly update that's the companion piece to the monthly performance report and risk-premia estimates. Risk analysis is a broad and deep subject and so this monthly update will be no one's idea of a...

There has been much commentary suggesting bonds have gotten overvalued due to historically low rates. At current rates, economic growth will likely very quickly return to sub-2% growth by 2022. Are bonds overvalued? No. But stocks are, and the bond market is ringing alarm bells wa...

The underlying quality mix in the high yield market is at an all-time high. The high yield market has benefited in recent years from reduced levels in two key drivers of ratings downgrades and default triggers. High yield new issuance set a record during 2020. For further de...

The average CCC-or-below rated junk bonds have yielded between 7.09% and 7.16% over the past two weeks, a new all-time record low. AMC Entertainment, which has been talking about how it is trying to stave off a bankruptcy filing, issued $500 million of secured notes in April 2020 to g...