High Yield Recovers, Fallen Angels Soar

High Yield Recovers, Fallen Angels Soar. Fallen angel bonds continued their history of outperformance, ending the first quarter ahead of the broad high yield bond market (+6.54% vs. +3.25%), as measured by the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA) and BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index (H0A0). The basic industry and energy sectors helped fallen angels’ performance, as oil prices bounced in February. Fallen angels are high yield corporate bonds that are originally issued with investment grade credit ratings. They offer a potential value proposition, as they tend to price in a high degree of risk ahead of downgrades to high yield, and may become oversold due to forced selling by institutional holders.

Fallen Angel Bonds Outperformed Broad High Yield in the First Quarter

Living up to their history of outperformance, fallen angel bonds (+6.54%) ended the first quarter having outperformed the broad high yield bond market (+3.25%) by 3.30%, as measured by the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA) and BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index (H0A0).1 Fallen angels are high yield corporate bonds that are originally issued with investment grade credit ratings.

Heavier Allocations to Basic Industry and Energy Drove Positive Results

Relative to the broad high yield bond market, fallen angels’ recent outperformance was primarily due to their higher average allocations to the basic industry and energy sectors. Both of these sectors’ bonds appreciated in the first quarter, as oil prices recovered approximately 46% since mid-February.2

Chart 1. Year-to-Date Top/Bottom Three Sector Attribution
BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA) vs. BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index (H0A0)

(Click to enlarge) Source: FactSet. Data as of March 31, 2016. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Top and bottom three sector attribution of the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index for fallen angels versus the BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index for the broad high yield bond market. Figures are gross of fees, non-transaction based and therefore estimates only. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Attribution represents the opportunity cost of investment positions in a group relative to the overall benchmark.

2016 Energy Sector Bias

Over the first quarter, fallen angels’ energy allocation grew from about 13% to 25%, while the broad high yield bond market’s went from approximately 11% to 13%.3 The overweight bias occurred as a result of the energy sector’s struggles in 2015, which led to investment grade energy companies suffering credit deterioration being downgraded to high yield. Allocating to bonds that are under ratings pressure may be considered a contrarian investment approach, which has tended to work for fallen angels in the past. Fallen angels tend to price in a substantial amount of this risk ahead of the ratings downgrades and, in general, become oversold from institutional forced selling upon entering the (H0FA) index, creating a potential value proposition.

Higher Quality High Yield

Fallen angels are generally characterized by higher average credit quality than the broad high yield bond market. While fallen angel bonds currently have a higher allocation to the energy sector than the broad high yield bond market, energy fallen angels are diversified across industries and concentrated in bonds with BB-credit (below investment grade) ratings.

ANGL Ranks at Top of High Yield Bond Category

Market Vectors® Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF (ANGL), which seeks to track the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA), ranked at the top of the actively managed high yield bond category year to date and over multiple time horizons since its April 2012 inception.4

Chart 2. Performance Relative to Peer Group
Market Vectors Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF (ANGL) vs. Morningstar Active High Yield Bond Universe

(Click to enlarge) Source: Morningstar. Data as of March 31, 2016.
This chart is for illustrative purposes only. Index performance is not illustrative of fund performance. Fund performance current to the most recent month end is available by visiting vaneckvectors.com/etfs. Historical information is not indicative of future results. Current data may differ from data quoted. Past performance is no guarantee of future results; Market Vectors Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF commenced on April 10, 2012. An investor cannot invest directly in an index. The results assume that no cash was added to or assets withdrawn from the Index. Index returns do not represent Fund returns. The Index does not charge management fees or brokerage expenses, nor does the Index lend securities, and no revenues from securities lending were added to the performance shown. The actively managed high yield bond category is represented by the Morningstar Open End Funds – U.S. – High Yield Bond category. See index descriptions below.

About ANGL

Market Vectors® Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF (ANGL), which seeks to track the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA), ranked at the top of the actively managed high yield bond category1 year to date and over multiple time horizons since its April 2012 inception.

Market Vectors® Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF received a five-star rating from Morningstar, as of March 31, 2016. ANGL was rated against 646 funds in Morningstar’s high yield bond category over the last three years. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.5 Additional resources and information on Market Vectors Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF (ANGL) »

ETFs is authored by VanEck thought leaders. VanEck is the sponsor of Market Vectors ETFs and is currently among the largest providers of exchange traded funds (ETFs) in the U.S. and worldwide. Market Vectors ETFs empower investors to help build better portfolios with access to compelling investment themes and strategies. Our ETFs span many global asset classes, and are built to be transparent, liquid, and pure-play reflections of target markets.

Authored by Meredith Larson, Product Manager, ETFs

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE

1Source: FactSet. Data as of March 31, 2016. Represented by the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA) and the BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index (H0A0).

2Source: FactSet. Data as of March 31, 2016.

3Source: FactSet. Data from December 31, 2105 to March 31, 2016.

4Morningstar ratings: ©2016 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The peer group chart presents trailing total return percentile rankings against the Morningstar Open End Funds – U.S. – High Yield Bond category, which comprised 822 funds as of March 31, 2016.

5Morningstar ratings: ©2016 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar RatingTM based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund’s monthly performance (including the effects of sales charges, loads, and redemption fees), placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The top 10% of funds in each category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. (Each share class is counted as a fraction of one fund within this scale and rated separately, which may cause slight variations in the distribution percentages.) The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five- and ten-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. As of March 31, 2016, ANGL was rated against 646 high yield bond funds over the last three years. ANGL received a Morningstar Rating of 5 stars for 3-year rating. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Morningstar Open End Funds – U.S. – High Yield Bond category is comprised of open-end mutual funds with an investment objective to seek returns via significant exposure to low quality bonds, those that are either unrated or rated by a major agency as BB or lower.

Morningstar ETF – U.S. – High Yield Bond category is comprised of exchange-traded funds with an investment objective to seek returns via significant exposure to low quality bonds, those that are either unrated or rated by a major agency as BB or lower.

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The indices listed are unmanaged indices and do not reflect the payment of transaction costs, advisory fees, or expenses that are associated with an investment in any underlying exchange-traded funds. Index performance is not illustrative of fund performance. Fund performance current to the most recent month end is available by visiting vaneck.com. Historical performance is not indicative of future results; current data may differ from data quoted. Indexes are unmanaged and are not securities in which an investment can be made.

BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA) is a subset of the BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index (H0A0), including securities that were rated investment grade at time of issuance. Performance and characteristics of the BofA Merrill Lynch US Fallen Angel High Yield Index (H0FA) are quoted throughout this material. H0FA is representative of the entire fallen angel high yield corporate bond market. H0FA does not represent the performance or yield of the Market Vectors Fallen Angel High Yield Bond ETF.

BofA Merrill Lynch US High Yield Index (H0A0) is comprised of below-investment grade corporate bonds (based on an average of Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch) denominated in U.S. dollars. The country of risk of qualifying issuers must be an FX-G10 member, a Western European nation, or a territory of the U.S. or a Western European nation.
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