Aberdeen Asset Management’s Roger Webb was quoted Friday in a Bloomberg News story that European high-yield bonds have the potential to return 8% in 2014 – a revision to his prior forecast of 7% for the year. Mr. Webb also revised his forecast for European investment-grade returns to 7% in 2014, up from 5%.
Through Aug. 21, European high yield gained 5.2% in local currency, compared with a 10% return for the full-year 2013; and investment-grade debt was up 6.1% (vs. 2.4% for the full-year 2013).
The year-to-date returns for the Barclays U.S. Aggregate and U.S. Corporate High Yield indexes were 4.4% and 5.5%, respectively.