Like safe haven bonds have been doing as of late, as more investors have been piling into debt issues in a flight to safety amid the coronavirus pandemic, it’s causing yields to rise. In the municipal debt space, this is causing local governments to purchase their own debt in order to prop up bond prices.
Per a Bloomberg report, local governments are “wading into the variable-rate market to drive down borrowing costs on the bonds with interest rates that reset daily or weekly. The municipal-bond market’s steep sell-off last month led yields on the debt to surge as money managers dumped them to raise cash, costing municipalities as they were facing higher expenses from battling the spread of the coronavirus.”
“The steps by officials to buy back some of their localities’ own debt signal some concern about the health of the state and local bond market even after the Federal Reserve last month included purchases of variable-rate debt as collateral as part of its lending program for money market funds,” the report added further. “Yields on an index of the securities fell 2.9 percentage points on Wednesday to 1.83%, still higher than the 0.92% that the index has averaged over the last five years.”
Exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors who are wary of the municipal debt space right now can look to alternative debt options like corporate bonds.
Corporate Bond Options
With the Federal Reserve stepping in to purchase corporate bonds to help keep the economy afloat, one ETF to consider is the Goldman Sachs Access Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF (GIGB). GIGB seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond to the performance of the FTSE Goldman Sachs Investment Grade Corporate Bond Index.
The fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing at least 80% of its assets (exclusive of collateral held from securities lending) in securities included in its underlying index. The index is a rules-based index that is designed to measure the performance of investment grade, corporate bonds denominated in U.S. dollars that meet certain liquidity and fundamental screening criteria.
For a high yield option, take a look at the Goldman Sachs Access High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (GHYB). GHYB seeks to provide investment results that closely correspond, before fees and expenses, to the performance of the FTSE Goldman Sachs High Yield Corporate Bond Index.
The fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing at least 80% of its assets (exclusive of collateral held from securities lending) in securities included in its underlying index. The index is a rules-based index that is designed to measure the performance of high yield corporate bonds denominated in U.S. dollars that meet certain liquidity and fundamental screening criteria.
For more market trends, visit ETF Trends.
