On our performance page, we show how the Yieldstream strategy has done since 1984. But bond mutual funds, including high yield bond funds, have been around a lot longer than that. For example, Northeast Investors Trust (NTHEX) has been available to investors since 1950.

We thought it would be interesting to share how the Yieldstream strategy has performed since 1950:

Yieldstream strategy performance since 1950

Strategy: Yieldstream High Yield Index
Compound Annual Growth Rate 12.3% 6.6%
Standard Deviation 2.0% 3.5%
Maximum Drawdown -4.0% -34.0%
Sharpe Ratio 3.72 0.71
Growth of $1,000 invested in 1950 $5,496,348 $115,090

Note that the above chart is generated automatically by the Yieldstream strategy, and updated every business day, using mutual fund and U.S. Treasury Bill data since 1950. We use the same algorithm and parameters that Yieldstream still uses today.

(Average performance during the earlier decades is slightly lower than Yieldstream performance since 1984. This is in part due to the smaller number of available mutual funds during this period).

In our experience, it's unusual that a quantitative investment strategy works so well over such a long period of time, a testament to the robustness of Yieldstream.