“It reflected the market’s difficulty in handling the heavy new-issuance calendar,” said Matt Fabian at Municipal Market Advisors, in the story.
Also weighing on muni bond ETFs was a Moody’s credit downgrade of Puerto Rico last week.
“Perhaps ironically, a safer haven area on the risk spectrum has taken a bit of a recent nose-dive,” writes Gary Gordon at ETF Expert on the recent action in muni bonds.
“Keep in mind, part of the muni bond attraction over the last six months can be traced to the expectation that tax rates on capital gains and dividends might rise for the wealthy next year,” he added. “Some folks clearly shifted assets into tax-exempt municipal bonds. Now, that tax-exempt status is under fire.”
iShares S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund
