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| Bonds Online |
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| 5/10/2013Market Performance |
| Municipal Bonds |
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S&P National Bond Index
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3.00% |
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S&P California Bond Index
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2.96% |
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S&P New York Bond Index
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3.13% |
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S&P National 0-5 Year Municipal Bond Index
|
0.70% |
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| S&P/BGCantor US Treasury Bond |
400.09 |
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| More |
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| Income Equities: |
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| Preferred Stocks |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index
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848.03 |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (CAD)
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636.26 |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (TR)
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1,701.05 |
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S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (TR) (CAD)
|
1,276.26 |
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| REITs |
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S&P REIT Index
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174.07 |
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S&P REIT Index (TR)
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425.30 |
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| MLPs |
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S&P MLP Index
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2,469.58 |
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S&P MLP Index (TR)
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5,428.50 |
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See Data
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Gauging Those Tremors in Municipal Bonds |
The New York Times - Jan. 8, 2011 - By CARLA FRIED
MARILYN COHEN, the founder of Envision Capital Management, manages $300 million in bond portfolios for individual investors. Since early November, she says, she has also taken on the job of running “the municipal bond equivalent of the Butterball turkey hot line,” fielding calls from investors worried how to handle the sharp fourth quarter sell-off in municipal bonds.
From Nov. 5 to Nov. 17, the Barclays Capital municipal bond index fell 3.4 percent. A subsequent two-week rally recaptured about a third of that loss, but a second leg down, from Dec. 6 to Dec. 15, shaved an additional 2.5 percent from the index. All told, that benchmark muni index lost 4 percent in the fourth quarter, nearly a year’s worth of income yield for an intermediate-term, high-grade tax-exempt bond fund.
Ms. Cohen says municipal bond investors should buckle in for more volatility in 2011. “Long-term we have a lot to worry about,” she says, referring to the growing concern over whether some states and municipalities, short on cash, will be able to make timely interest payments on their bonds.
Municipal bond experts agree that there will be a rising number of muni bond defaults in coming years, but most say they expect that the scope and impact will be limited.
“The prognosis for an avalanche of defaults is way over the top,” says Hugh McGuirk, who oversees municipal bond funds at T. Rowe Price.
Jamie Pagliocco, lead manager of the Fidelity Municipal Income fund and director of Fidelity’s muni bond portfolio managers, concurs. “We don’t expect a wave of defaults,” he says.
In fact, Pamela Tynan, manager of the Vanguard Short-Term Tax-Exempt fund, says the cause of the recent sell-off in the municipal bond market has been “a near perfect storm” of events that “had nothing to do with credit issues.”
The European sovereign debt crisis reared up again in the early fall, as Ireland’s fiscal woes came to a head. That set off a new round of hand-wringing concern that states with extreme budget shortfalls — like California, Illinois and New Jersey — might be atop a list of the next “sovereigns” that won’t be able to keep up with debt payments. But bond managers say the comparison is faulty, and attribute the recent volatility to other factors.
For the complete article.
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Income Security Recommendation January 2013 Issue.
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