High Yield bond returns are more correlated with the equity returns of the firm that issued the bond but less correlated with Government bonds. This is because: Firms that issue High Yield bonds are usually those firms that are unable to get investment grade rating from the credit rating agency. Rating agencies assess a firm's ability to repay their debt obligation and if that ability is low, the credit rating agency then designates that debt to have a higher level of credit risk. High Yield bonds are also called junk bonds since they have a higher chance of default compared with Investment grade bonds and they compensate investors with higher yields. This added level of credit risk makes the High Yield bonds more appealing to investors who primarily invest in equities. This increases the correlation between High Yield bonds and the equity returns of a firm that issues them. High Yield bonds are issued by firms that have higher chance of defaulting on their debt obligation. This added credit risk premium is larger than the yields on a Government bond and this credit risk premium varies with the firm's profitability. Improvement in a firm's profitability will also result in higher equity returns as well as lowering of the credit risk of its bonds. Government bond yields are based on the term structure of interest rate which can change not only because of economic events but also because of investors demand for higher yields for longer lending periods (liquidity hypothesis) and/or investor's demand for a prefered end of the yield curve (segmentation hypothesis). That is why High Yield bonds are less correlated with Government bonds. High Yield corporate bonds are more correlated with Government bonds than with Investment Grade corporate bonds with the same maturity