美国杠杆贷款指数月度总结（英）2026

June 1, 2026 May Wrap: Steady returns mask a loan market pulling in two directions By: Marina Lukatsky US leveraged loans posted a steady if unspectacular month in May, with the Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index gaining 0.51%. Beneath thesurface, the market's defining tension deepened: technicals remained firmly supportive, with a surging repricing wave and recovering CLO issuanceproducing a sizable supply shortage, while secondary prices stalled and the AI-driven divide between Software and the rest of the market widened tohistoric extremes. Issuance rebounded in headline terms, but the composition told a selective story, with higher-quality borrowers dominating and LBO activityremaining sparse. May market highlights: •Loans gained 0.51% in May, above the trailing 12-month average of 0.42% but well below April's 1.29%; the YTD return of 1.24% is theweakest in four years.•April's price rally fizzled: the market-value return turned negative again, and the weighted average bid closed at 95.33.•Software loans slipped 38 bps to 87.71 while the rest of the market held steady near the top of its recent range.•Building Products displaced Software as the worst-performing sector year-to-date, down 5.41%, pressured by a weak housing market andtariff uncertainty on imported materials.•Bifurcation is increasingly defining the market: distressed and stressed paper combined accounts for roughly 12% of loans, while the par-plus share remains near 40%, underscoring a growing divide between stronger and weaker credits.•New-issue activity rebounded to $111 billion, the strongest month since January, but nearly half came via repricing amendments. LBOvolume was a tepid $1.6 billion.•New-issue spreads tightened across all rating buckets, with B-minus borrowers clearing at the tightest level post-GFC, though the pool oflower-rated borrowers accessing the market remains thin. Returns firm, prices fizzle US leveraged loans had a relatively stable month, with the Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index gaining 0.51% in May, down from 1.29% inApril but roughly in line with the trailing 12-month average of 0.42%. Year-to-date, loans gained 1.24%, the weakest showing for any comparable period in four years, as secondary price weakness continues to blunt thebenefit of elevated base rates. The strong secondary price rally from April fizzled in May. The market-value component of returns was negative 10 bps, after a positive 69 bpsreading the prior month. It has now been negative in eight of the last twelve months. The weighted average bid climbed 11 bps in the first half of Mayto 95.42, only to surrender most of those gains by month-end. Loans closed May at 95.33, two basis points above April's close. Prices remain 131bps below their 2026 starting point. A market split in two The divergence between Software and the rest of the market continued to widen in May. Non-Software performing loans edged down slightly, withthe weighted average bid slipping three basis points to 96.80 by month-end, remaining near the top of the range the segment has occupied sinceearly March. Software loans slipped 38 bps over the month to 87.71, extending a selloff that began in earnest in late January when the two segmentstraded within roughly 220 bps of each other. The gap briefly stabilized in the 800-880 bps range through March and into early April, but resumedwidening in May, crossing 900 bps for the first time on May 5 and reaching as wide as 930 bps intramonth before closing at 909 bps. That is morethan four times the difference at the start of the year. Dispersion data indicate that investors are growing more selective, especially in the Software sector. The trend was already building in Q4 2025, whenthe interquartile range widened from 2 to 2.5 points even as the median bid edged up. It then exploded to nearly 6 points by the March 3 trough,driven by AI disruption fears and a sharp SaaS selloff, before retreating to 4.1 points in May. Software tells a more extreme version of the same story. By March 3, the interquartile range had reached 16.8 points, with a quarter of Software loanstrading in distressed territory (below 80 cents on the dollar). By the end of May, the median bid recovered to the 93.5 area, but dispersion continued towiden, with the interquartile range at a whopping 18 points. This suggests that investors are separating winners and losers based on AI disruptionrisk. Software names gained 0.32% in May, the sector's third consecutive positive month, trimming the year-to-date loss to 4.73% from nearly 8% at theMarch trough. Still, monthly performance lagged the broader market, with the overall index gaining 0.51% in May. The underperformance is evenstarker on a year-to-date basis: Software is the second-worst performing sector, down 4.73%, against a market that is up 1.24%. Media and Building Products stumble; services names shine The Morningstar LSTA US Leveraged Loan Index tracks 63 industries based on the GICS indu