|
|
|
|
| BondsOnline.com: instant access to and extensive coverage of over 3.5 million stocks, bonds, indexes and other securities covering major and emerging markets and exchanges across the globe. |
|
|
| Bonds Online |
|
|
| 5/10/2013Market Performance |
| Municipal Bonds |
|---|
|
S&P National Bond Index
|
3.00% |
|
|
S&P California Bond Index
|
2.96% |
|
|
S&P New York Bond Index
|
3.13% |
|
|
S&P National 0-5 Year Municipal Bond Index
|
0.70% |
|
|
| S&P/BGCantor US Treasury Bond |
400.09 |
|
| More |
|
| Income Equities: |
|---|
| Preferred Stocks |
|---|
|
S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index
|
848.03 |
|
|
S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (CAD)
|
636.26 |
|
|
S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (TR)
|
1,701.05 |
|
|
S&P U.S. Preferred Stock Index (TR) (CAD)
|
1,276.26 |
|
|
| REITs |
|---|
|
S&P REIT Index
|
174.07 |
|
|
S&P REIT Index (TR)
|
425.30 |
|
|
| MLPs |
|---|
|
S&P MLP Index
|
2,469.58 |
|
|
S&P MLP Index (TR)
|
5,428.50 |
|
|
See Data
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The observer effect on muni ETFs
Drowning out mainstream media from the heart of Times Square |
REUTERS - Jan. 14, 2011
How much are municipal bonds worth? There are lots of indices purporting to follow the market, but these days all the attention is on exchange-traded funds, which are plunging alarmingly. The volatility in municipal ETFs has already caused Vanguard to pull its plans to issue three more such funds, and the total amount of money in them seems to be falling fast:
Individual investors, who represent two-thirds of the market, withdrew more than $13bn from muni bond mutual and exchange traded funds in the last two months of 2010, an outflow that exceeded the sums they cashed out at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Thomson Reuters data show.
When individual investors only owned specific bonds or muni mutual funds, outflows in the muni market were much less visible than they are today. With ETFs, outflows cause immediate and significant price drops, and that kind of volatility can in turn prompt even more selling from muni investors—who are, after all, risk-averse by their nature. Aaron Pressman writes:
Amid the turmoil, ETF investors have complained that some muni ETFs are not properly tracking their underlying market indexes. During the fourth quarter, for example, the share price of the $2 billion iShares S&P National AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund, closed as much as 2.4 percent below the value of its assets, according to the iShares web site. The fund closed on Wednesday at a 0.5 percent discount.
Tracking problems arise because muni ETFs own only a portion of the thousands of bonds included in their underlying indexes. Fund managers try to create a representative sample of bonds but the technique sometimes goes astray when the market moves sharply.
But Dan Seymour has a different take, in a fascinating article about the increasing disconnect between municipal bond indices and the ETFs which try to track them, and comes to the conclusion that the ETFs actually do a much better job of price discovery than indices do—given that the indices, by their nature, comprise thousands of bonds which simply aren’t trading at all.
For the complete article.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Partner Market Place |
|
|
|
| Stuff to look at |
Yield and Income Newsletter: A must have for income investors. subscribe NOW
S&P Commentary and Newsletters: S&P
|
|
| BondsOnline Advisor |
Income Security Recommendation January 2013 Issue.
Keep up with monthly, in-depth coverage of fixed income market strategies, commentary, and insights as seen by our sources. Sign up for the free BondsOnline Advisor now!
Unsubscribe here [+] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
