While the oft-heard argument that “The Fed wouldn’t raise rates unless everything is awesome” has held for a few months, as risk assets (high-yield bonds) have rallied along with rising rates, it appears that too much hawkishness (around the 70% chance of a hike) was too much for bulls to bear, as last week saw high-yield bond ETF outflows soar to an all-time record high.

Chart: Bloomberg

Chart: Bloombergoutflows from the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond exchange-traded fund (HYG), the top ranked ETF by assets in the junk bond market, set a new record on Thursday – almost eclipsing the $1 billion mark. IShares’ high-grade corporate bond ETF (LQD) also shed $785 million in assets. That brings net outflows over the past week for HYG and LQD to $1.4 billion and $1 billion, respectively.

Chart: Bloomberg

While the price of HYG has yet to fall dramatically…

Despite these outflows, the search for yield is still going strong, according toChart: Bloomberg The strong selling of HYG coincided with inflows to the Powershares Senior Loan Portfolio ETF (BKLN), which tracks the performance of shorter-term, floating-rate debt. “This is a sign that investors are not as concerned about credit quality as they are about interest rate sensitivity,” he said. “HYG is a reliable bellwether for how investors are fearing higher rates.”