At the beginning of the year, the stock market was led by a rise in safer, defensive positions.
But now, it's all flipped around: new highs have come as investors have moved into higher-risk trades.
Junk bonds are one example of a high-risk trade that is on fire. July is on pace for $4 billion of high yield ETF inflows, which would make it the biggest month in almost five years.
Just in the last two weeks, exchange-traded funds tracking U.S. high-yield bonds have seen a net inflow of over $2 billion — four times the inflow of the previous month, according to data from Markit. At this pace, monthly flows could exceed $4 billion, which would make July the biggest month for high-yield inflows since January 2012.
Those inflows have boosted popular ETFs like the SPDR Barclays High Yield, which is up 3.6 percent in a month. The iShares High Yield Corporate Bond fund is also up 3.3 percent in the same period.