few assets have been safe this year from the pummeling in financial markets and junk bonds also have been rather well trashy yeartodate the spdr bloomberg high yield bond etf jnk has lost 16 in what is almost certainly going to be the worst performance since the 2008 financial crisis its spread to treasurys has now surpassed 500 basis points for the first time since november 2020 but what it does mean is that high yields are now if not lofty historically a pretty hefty 84 only twice in the past 30 years have yields risen so quickly according to data from bostonbased valuefocused fund manager gmo rachna ramachandran a researcher at gmo points out the higher yield means the asset class can absorb a lot more bad news an 84 annual yield can absorb a default rate of 12 in the subsequent 12 months which is a big jump given the default rate over the previous year has been about 1 “while that’s likely to go up over the coming months reaching a doubledigit default rate that quickly would require a sizable credit shock” she says last month sp projected the default rate in speculative grade companies could reach 3 by 2023 that isn’t to say that yields couldn’t rise further but she says yields would need to rise by almost 100 basis points in the next 6 months or over 195 basis points in the next 12 months before an investment now would be underwater historically at these yields the 12month returns have been enticing the only time they weren’t was during the global financial crisis which is another way of saying in the absence of a deep recession highyield bonds now have a favorable riskreward profile she says quadruple witching the expiration of index futures and options and single stock options and futures takes place friday not only did the bank of japan not raise interest rates on friday it reaffirmed its yield control guidance the us dollar usdjpy soared against the yen though the central bank did say it would closely watch the impact of exchange rate moves on the japanese economy federal reserve chair jerome powell is due to make welcoming remarks at a conference on the international role of the us dollar data on industrial production and leading indicators are due for release according to the new york times spacex has fired employees who helped to write a letter critical of the behavior of ceo elon musk who also heads tesla tsla and is trying to buy twitter twtr  the european union recommended that ukraine be given candidate status after the dow industrials djia on thursday fell below the key 30000 level us stock futures es00 nq00 were pointing to a brighter start the yield on the 10year treasury tmubmusd10y slipped further to 322 oil futures cl1 rose and bitcoin btcusd was trading above 20000 here were the most active stockmarket tickers as of 6 am eastern delta air lines dal is turning away customers who go to its lounges too early an 18thcentury cockroach was discovered in a slavetrading ship ledger farmers in ukraine are tricking russian troops with poisonous cherries need to know starts early and is updated until the opening bell but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box the emailed version will be sent out at about 730 am eastern want more for the day ahead sign up for the barron’s daily a morning briefing for investors including exclusive commentary from barron’s and marketwatch writers