US junk funds bled another $2.3 billion during the latest weekly reporting period, data released late Thursday showed.

It was the third straight outflow and the fifth in six weeks. The net outflow over that six-week stretch comes to more than $13 billion. For context, high yield funds lost around $19 billion during the five-week stretch covering the original pandemic panic.

Readers will recall that the $6 billion outflow witnessed during the week ended February 22 was the third-largest ever, according to Lipper’s data.

IG funds, meanwhile, snapped a three-week run of inflows, losing a tame $238 million in the week to March 1.

High yield is obviously in the firing line in the event of a recession, but recent data has been anything but recessionary in the US. Spreads are exhibiting no signs of stress. “Potentially most striking in the [context of the] large high yield outflow of the past month is the stable performance of high yield spreads during that time,” BMO’s Daniel Krieter remarked on Thursday.  

In the primary market, last month was the heaviest February ever for IG. More than $150 billion in supply topped 2021’s record and brought the YTD haul to almost a quarter trillion. Already.

As far as I can tell, 2023 is off to the busiest start ever for high-grade supply.

High yield issuance is naturally more tepid, but February’s $14 billion marked a decent encore from January’s $19 billion. Both months would’ve counted as the second-busiest of 2022, when onerous market conditions effectively slammed the door shut.

Do note: IG credit was swept up in February’s hawkish maelstrom in the US rates complex. Although spreads were only modestly wider, Bloomberg’s IG index dropped some 3%, the largest February decline in data going back almost three decades. On BofA’s index, last month was the second-worst February since 1973.