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Tuesday, November 16, 1999 S&P's First Select Bond Funds Standard & Poor's today announced the 25 high yield bond funds awarded Select status, in the first fixed-income fund Select list. The latest list is the ninth since March when S&P initiated the Select program in an attempt to compete with Morningstar's pervasive star ranking system.
Although the funds utilize a number of different strategies and risk controls to achieve their goals, said Edwards, the list of 25 names does contain some of the more conservative funds in the universe. Overall, most of the funds' portfolios have an average credit rating of B, although some do average a little higher. Most of the funds are highly diversified, often holding between 100 and 250 investments diversified across a number of industry groups. Exceptions to that rule include Columbia High Yield (CMHYX), which generally holds 60 or less, and SEI's multi-manager institutional Managed Fund (SHYAX), which currently holds around 700. The Select Funds performance, both long-term and short-term, has consistently beaten their peers and benchmark, the Lehman High Yield Bond Index. Year-to-date, the Select Funds have achieved a 2.22% gain, compared to 1.30% for the peer group and 0.08% for the index. In the past year, the Select Funds have gained 7.71% versus gains of 6.41% and 4.34% in the peer group and benchmark respectively.
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