This is finance 101, something that loyek590 has clearly taken and something it appears you've either not taken or forgotten. The yield on a bond is directly correlated to its risk of default. You want more yield, you accept more risk. If the risk free rate is 0% and the bond is 8%, the market is giving it an 8% chance of default. If the risk free rate is 1% and the bond is 8%, the market is giving it a 7% chance of default. The delta between whatever you consider the risk free rate and the bond in question is the risk premium that company had to pay to sell their bonds. People don't buy an 8% bond because they ran out of SPIC protection or because they're smarter than the idiots who park money in a bank, they are seeking that return for that amount of risk. Companies don't willingly lend at 8% when other companies can lend at 4%, regardless of where they sit in the S&P500. In upper level finance you can talk about debt service, reliability of cash flows, total debt outstanding, and the myriad of other factors that influence a company's risk of default and hence the interest they have to pay on their debt. Position in the S&P 500, since that represents equity, not debt, falls pretty far down the list in importance. In fact the relationship between equity and debt in a highly leveraged company can make the debt more risky. Plenty of S&P 500 company's bonds are in junk territory, btw.