Leveraged Loans Suffered Biggest Monthly Decline in Seven Years
- December’s 2.5 percent drop was biggest since August 2011
- Loans still outperformed most other parts of credit last year
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U.S. leveraged loans suffered their biggest loss in December since mid-2011, following record-breaking fund outflows. Despite this, the floating-rate asset class eked out a slim gain for 2018.
Loans posted a 2.5 percent loss in December, the worst since August 2011, when S&P downgraded the U.S. AAA credit rating and loans lost 4.4 percent in the month. This followed a 0.9 percent drop in November and compared to a 2.1 percent loss for U.S. junk bonds last month, data compiled by Bloomberg show.