“Municipalities are going in the right direction,” Philip Condon, DWS Investments’ chief fixed-income strategist, said in the CNNMoney article.
Ratings agencies have not raised any warning flags on muni bond issuers. According to Moody’s, only 11 defaults out of 17,700 bond issues sampled occurred over the 2010-11 period, writes Dr. Jay H. Abrams, Chief Municipal Credit Analyst, at FMSBonds.
“We expect municipal debt defaults will remain infrequent and isolated events, rather than systemic events, despite unprecedented credit pressure,” according to the Moody’s report.
Some muni bond ETFs include:
- Market Vectors High Yield Municipal Index ETF (NYSEArca: HYD)
- SPDR Barclays Capital Short Term Municipal Bond ETF (NYSEArca: SHM)
- SPDR Barclays Capital Municipal Bond ETF (NYSEArca: TFI)
- Powershares Insured National Municipal Bond Portfolio ETF (NYSEArca: PZA)
- iShares S&P National AMT-Free Muni Bonds Fund (NYSEArca: MUB)
- iShares S&P Short Term National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund ETF (NYSEArca: SUB)
- Market Vectors Intermediate Municipal ETF (NYSEArca: ITM)
For more information on munis, visit our municipal bonds category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.