Junk Bonds Stand Out Amid Losses for Global Fixed Income

Speculative-grade corporate bonds are beating almost every other type of fixed-income security this year and fund managers at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Barings see the outperformance continuing.

Junk credit has returned a modest 0.3% in 2024 so far, but that’s still a better showing than most segments of the market, with global government debt posting a 3.4% loss, Bloomberg indexes show. Of 19 major major fixed-income Bloomberg indexes, only four have generated gains year to date. Three of them are speculative-grade bonds.

“Prospects for a near-term recession are low,” Scott Roth, head of global high yield at ...