Ford Motor Co.’s finance arm sold $1.75 billion of five-year debt, taking advantage of investor demand for high-yield bonds, on pace for the longest rally since 1996, Bloomberg reported.

Ford Motor Credit Co., the biggest issuer of speculative- grade securities last year and the only one of the three largest U.S. automakers to avoid bankruptcy, sold the notes with a 7 percent coupon. That’s the lowest fixed-rate yield Ford has paid on dollar bonds since June 2005, and compares with the 8.7 percent rate on similar notes sold in September, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Companies in the U.S. issued a record $73 billion of junk bonds this year, and the securities are poised for a 14th straight monthly gain, as Federal Reserve policy makers keep interest rates at the lowest ever to stoke the economy. Speculative-grade bonds have returned 63 percent since a global debt-market rally began in March 2009, compared with 24 percent for investment-grade notes, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.

“The health of the high-yield market is very strong,” said Ann Benjamin, who helps oversee $7 billion of such debt for Neuberger Berman LLC in Chicago. The market is “pricing in a higher debt rating for Ford than the agencies” such as Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, she said.