Beware the Vulnerable Oil Debt That Lurks in Your Junk-Bond ETFs
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It pays to look a little closer at your investments in exchange-traded high-yield funds right now to find out just how exposed you are to plunging oil prices.
Take State Street Corp.’s $9.8 billion junk-bond ETF that trades under the ticker JNK. It’s lost almost twice as much as a broad index of high-yield debt since the end of August, partly because its bigger allocation to energy companies has been a drag as oil prices plummet to the lowest since 2009.