JNK: State Street SPDR Bloomberg High Yield Bond ETF

What does JNK hold?#

This fund lends money to companies with lower credit ratings by owning their US dollar bonds. These are often called junk bonds. They pay more interest than safer bonds, but there is a bigger chance a company cannot pay back.

It tracks the Bloomberg High Yield Very Liquid Index. It had 1,161 holdings as of October 15, 2026, according to SPDR (State Street).

What is the JNK expense ratio?#

JNK charges 0.4% a year. An expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund takes to run itself. On $10,000, a 0.4% fee comes to about $40 a year.

You never get a bill for it. The fund takes the fee out of its own value a little each day.

How has JNK done since 2007?#

From December 2007 to October 2026, JNK returned about 4.8% a year. Say you put in $10,000 at the start. It would have been worth about $24,063 at the end, with every dividend reinvested.

Prices through October 16, 2026. Figures use daily closing prices adjusted for splits, with dividends reinvested. They do not include taxes or the cost of buying and selling. Past results do not tell you what will happen next.

JNK returns by year#

What was JNK’s worst drop?#

A drawdown is how far a fund falls from its last high point. JNK’s worst fall was −38.5%, from January 2, 2008 to March 9, 2009. It got back to that high on October 22, 2009.

The chart shows how far below its last high the fund was on each day. Big drops are normal for some funds. They matter because selling during a drop locks in the loss.

Which Tactfolio strategies hold JNK?#

One classic strategy holds JNK at least some of the time. Each is a set of written rules you can open, test and copy.

• Paul Novell’s Tactical Bond Strategy, by Paul Novell, 2014

How does JNK compare with similar ETFs?#

Funds that can stand in for JNK:

• USHY: iShares Broad USD High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, 0.08% a year
• HYG: iShares iBoxx $ High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, 0.49% a year
• VCIT: Vanguard Intermediate-Term Corporate Bond ETF, 0.03% a year
• LQD: iShares iBoxx $ Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF, 0.14% a year

See all 4 JNK alternatives, compared on the same dates as JNK.

Test JNK in your own rules#

Tactfolio is a platform where you build rules-based investing strategies, backtest them on decades of real prices, share them, and run them automatically in your own Alpaca account. Open the builder, add JNK, and see how a rule such as “hold it only above its 200-day average” would have done. Strategies run on daily prices and hold US stocks and ETFs only.

The details#

Prices come from Tactfolio’s stored daily prices for JNK. Each close is adjusted for splits, and dividends are reinvested on the day the fund pays them out. CAGR is the steady yearly return that turns the starting value into the ending value. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns.

Fund facts come from SPDR (State Street). We checked them on October 16, 2026. Read what a backtest simulates and how to read drawdown and CAGR for more on these measures.