You need to rifle through 18 years of history to find selloffs that compare to the one corporate bond investors are now enduring.
Debt of American companies just posted their third-worst 100-day returns since 2000, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. index, as tighter monetary conditions leave their mark on high-quality bonds with longer maturities.
With negative returns likely to scare off retail investors, the outlook for the asset class looks grim, JPMorgan strategists said in a Friday note. But they find a silver lining: the highest yields in almost five years are likely to discourage new bond supply, which would at least help the technical picture.
The selloff in corporate credit is now on par with the rout in emerging markets. A Bloomberg Barclays index of U.S. investment-grade credit is down 3.9 percent so far this year, while dollar bonds of developing nations have declined at about the same clip.
