JPM High-Yield and Leveraged Loan Morning Intelligence

Research evidence excerpt

North America Credit Research

5 August 2026

JPM High-Yield and Leveraged Loan Morning Intelligence

--Pre-open relevant levels: S&P Futures +25pts to 7790; 5-year Treasury 4.33% (0bp early am); 10-year

Treasury 4.61% (0bp early am); WTI Crude +$0.70 to $76.5 (-$4.57 d/d); Brent Crude +$1.28 to $80.6 ($4.41 d/d); Nikkei +3.66%; Shanghai Comp +1.47%; Euro-Stoxx -0.01%; HY yields 7.34% (-9bp d/d); HY

spreads 308bp (-3bp d/d); Loan 3-yr yields 8.88% (-7bp d/d); Loan 3-yr spreads 492bp (-2bp d/d)

--Tuesday’s Fund Flows: HY ETFs +$639mn, HY actively managed -$65mn, Loan ETFs +$183mn

(+$27mn Loan, +$156mn CLO), Loan actively managed +$65mn.

--Most Actively Traded Issuers: WHR, CRWV, CHTR, VMED, BHCCN

--Trace and Dealer Activity: The JPM DM $US estimate for HY traded Tuesday is $12.3bn vs. $11.2bn

YTD avg. This compares to FINRA's reported $18.6bn of HY traded Tuesday. Dealers net bought $155mn

of bonds from clients and dealers net sold $511mn of bonds to clients over the past 5 days.

--Distressed Leveraged Loans: The distressed universe of leveraged loans declined modestly m/m off a

high since May 2020. Specifically, the amount of loans trading at or below $80 decreased by -$0.1bn

m/m to $143.6bn or 9.4% outstanding. Notably, the distressed loan universe has grown +$69.8bn

over the past 10 months (+94%). For reference, 5.1% of the loan universe traded sub-$80 a year ago,

9.2% at the beginning of 2023, and as much as 26.0% in March 2020. And over the past decade, the default

rate 12-months forward has equated to 60% of the beginning period universe of sub-$80 loans. There are

now 148 LL issuers trading sub-$80, +6 issuers m/m and +43 issuers yoy. Of loans classified as

distressed 45% are Technology, 12% Services, and 10% Healthcare. Notably, the Tech sector has

$64.2bn of distressed loan debt (-$1.6bn m/m). The largest contributors to the sub-$80 loan universe

are KASEYA, CDK, QLIK, MAGBUY, CNR, and BSPEED. Meanwhile, the universe of loans trading

sub-$60 and sub-$70 rose by +$6.5bn and +$6.2bn to $55.5bn (or 3.6%) and $88.9bn (or 5.8%),

respectively. Notably, the sub-$60 universe (or deeply stressed) has risen to a high since April 2020

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