The recent sell-off in muni bond ETFs has been triggered by rising interest rates.
The asset class also faces lingering questions over shaky finances at many state and local governments.
For example, Jefferson County, Alabama, reached an agreement to pay its largest creditors $1.84 billion, or 60% of what they’re owed, as part of a plan to end the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy by the end of the year, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Controversial analyst Meredith Whitney is also back in the headlines with a new book that “sets out to show that the fortunes of debt-burdened coastal states are waning, while interior states that emerged from the financial crisis relatively unscathed are poised to gain the most,” MarketWatch reports.
“The book serves as something of a follow-up to a now-famous 2010 interview on 60 Minutes where her words were taken as a prediction of a near-term wave of municipal bond defaults,” according to the report. “That made her a maligned figure in the municipal bond world as muni investors ditched the market en masse after her call. This book is her first full-fledged response to her critics.”
iShares National AMT-Free Muni Bond ETF
