Monday, February 11, 2008

Municipal bonds (Munis) as a ETF.

This rainy season is attracting attention to municipal bonds from several reasons. FED is cutting interest rates which boosting bond prices. If Democrats win Presidential election, most probably they enhance muni's tax advantages. Apart from, single A rated munis are having 80 times lower historical default rate (0.0084) than triple triple AAA corporate bonds. Merrill Lynch municipal index has in 2007 3,29% return which is less than half of average return during last 19 years. On the other side, faith in triple A munis was hit by CDO losses at Ambac (ABK) and MBIA (MBI).

Municipal bonds can be bought indirectly via fund or ETF. Among funds I'd point out Oppenheimer Rochester National Municipals (ORNAX) and less aggressive Legg Mason Partners Managed Municipals (SHMMX).
This segment is just developing among ETF issuers. Van Eck Global issued on Janaury couple of ETF underlying municipal bonds like:

Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Intermediate Municipal Index ETF (ITM)
Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Long Municipal Index ETF (MLN)
Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Intermediate Municipal Index ETF (ITM)
Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Long Municipal Index ETF (MLN)

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