HYG max drawdown: 30.3%
iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF. From its 2007-10-31 peak, HYG fell 30.3% to the 2008-11-30 trough and needed 13 months to make a new high (2009-11-30). Computed from 558 months of history starting 1980-01-31, including extended pre-ETF data where available.
High yield, bond label with equity-like drawdowns.
HYG drawdown statistics
2007-10-31 peak to 2008-11-30 trough.
New high reached 2009-11-30.
Share of all months spent below a prior high.
Rolling year ending 2008-11-30.
For context, SPY (the S&P 500 baseline) had a maximum drawdown of 50.8% over the same kind of monthly-close analysis.
The biggest HYG drawdowns on record
| Depth | Peak | Trough | Recovered | Peak to trough | Total underwater |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -30.3% | 2007-10-31 | 2008-11-30 | 2009-11-30 | 13 mo | 2.1 years |
| -27.0% | 1980-06-30 | 1990-10-31 | 1992-01-31 | 124 mo | 11.6 years |
| -15.3% | 2021-12-31 | 2022-09-30 | 2024-03-31 | 9 mo | 2.3 years |
| -11.6% | 2019-12-31 | 2020-03-31 | 2020-11-30 | 3 mo | 11 months |
| -9.5% | 2015-05-31 | 2016-01-31 | 2016-07-31 | 8 mo | 14 months |
Methodology: monthly closing prices, peak-to-trough on total return where available. History extends before the ETF's launch via documented proxy chains (index funds, indices, and academic series), the same data that powers BestFolio's strategy backtests. Educational information, not investment advice.
Drawdowns are the reason tactical strategies exist
Buy-and-hold HYG means living through every number on this page. BestFolio tracks 46+ published TAA strategies whose whole job is cutting these drawdowns, with out-of-sample track records.