Municipal Bond Forum

You are correct in your assessment of muni bond laddering, but you failed to mention that if you buy one 30-year bond every year, you have effectively created a ladder, or an average life of no more than 15 years, which is now equivalent to holding medium-term bonds, while enjoying higher yields than otherwise. The key is to get started and don’t stop.

J.A., New York

I enjoyed your article on public pensions. My wife and I receive three public employee pensions from Illinois. Needless to say, the hype Illinois has received in this regard has been on my mind recently. As usual, you have given us a thoughtful and balanced presentation to consider against the popular press, which often runs to hysteria. As an FMSbonds client, I appreciate the service you perform by offering us informed commentary, and the insight it shows gives me confidence in the research underlying the recommendations we receive from our broker, Edie Nasello.

G.B., Montana

I appreciated your article on laddering. I agree that predicting future rates is futile and that ladder strategies are not necessarily wise — if you want to make money. I notice you didn’t mention the importance of slope in determining what maturities you should buy. Given enough incentive, or slope, a buy-long-and-hold strategy is brilliant for the tax-free investor. In a flat yield curve environment (I have no idea the last time the muni curve was any degree of flat), I still wouldn’t favor a ladder strategy, but I don’t think I would buy long and hold, either.

D.W.

As a client of FMSbonds and active muni bond investor, I read your article about laddering with interest but felt that it raised some unanswered questions. First, isn’t your critique of laddering really a product of a steep yield curve? Would your criticism of laddering soften if the yield curve flattened out so that short-term bonds yielded substantially more in relation to long-term bonds than they currently do? Secondly, in the current market, would you be as critical of laddering, which encompasses maturities from, say, 10 to 30 years as opposed to holding a portfolio of all 30-year plus bonds?

M.G., New York

In your article on laddering, you forgot one important point: 30 years is a long time. If the holder of the bonds needs the money before maturity and has to liquidate these bonds, they will suffer losses. Interest rates have nowhere to go but up. If an investor is 55 and buys 30-year bonds now, it is a disaster waiting to happen. Also, if you believe this theory, why do you offer shorter-term bonds?

M.S., California

I just read your article on laddering and chuckled. I started investing in individual long-term muni bonds in 1988. I was advised to sell all of my long bonds and reinvest in short terms. I was also advised to ladder. But as your article brought out, I noticed that after 2000, rates were not increasing, so I continued buying when my income presented a surplus and when a bond was called. I now have many bonds paying a higher rate and yield because they were longer term.  Your advice is good. Just buy when you have the extra cash, invest the longest term for your lifetime (or heirs) and buy good quality bonds.

S.A., California

You are correct on a 10-year ladder and if you don’t need to sell during the period, but I was a bond broker for years and now have 50% of my account in munis. In the early ’80s, I experienced some long bonds going from par to 45 bid. I still ladder and have maturities every year out to 30 years. I remember Sen. Mark Hatfield’s idea to tax munis. Franklin Funds put millions out for the bid to meet redemptions. We had a field day.

W.H., California

Excellent facts on laddering. I will never need the principle of my portfolio and have more than $1 million in long-term tax-free bonds. May I suggest you touch on margin buying in the future.

L.V., California

I completely agree with your advice and value your editorials. The only caveat I would add is that I like to purchase what I call a “long-term bond ladder.” I only buy bonds delivering the most interest (generally 20 to 30 years) but with various maturity/call features. This has served me well as I have been averaging 5% returns over the last 18 years and still get “interest rate protection.”

D.M., New Jersey

In your article on laddering, you don’t address the situation where the investor uses the income each year and perhaps some of the principal, especially in a rising interest rate environment. Surely you don’t believe long- term interest rates will not be in a significant uptrend the next 10 years.

A.B., Florida