MZF News and Press, Managed Duration Investment Grade Municipal Fund From 08/27/19

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Municipal bonds have seen record flows in 2019. Martin talks to head of BlackRock's municipal strategy about some of the reasons why. Martin: Sean, first set the stage for us. Munis have been on a tear this year. What's behind it? Sean: I would say the most obvious driver has been a ...

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By Patricia Healy, CFA The positive trend of upgrades to downgrades continues. S&P reported on May 8th that upgrades outpaced downgrades by 2.39 to 1 in Q1 2019, which compares to 2.09 to 1 for all of 2018. In our monitoring of rating agencies' actions, this trend appears to have conti...

By Cooper J Howard When you buy a municipal bond, you're making a loan to a state or local government, for which it promises to pay you back an amount at some date in the future - potentially as long as 30 years in the future. How do you know if the municipality will be able to make good...

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By Cooper J Howard The municipal bond market is off to its hottest start in five years, led by the lower-rated segments of the muni market. It may be tempting to chase returns, but we suggest that investors instead take a cautious approach and focus on higher-rated issuers during the secon...

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The municipal bond market continues to heat up, and while issuance volume remains low, some sales have crossed the wires. This week we shine a spotlight on a proposed Los Angeles TRANs transaction, as well as Intel Corporation Project-related Revenue Bonds out of Chandler, Arizona. ...

In this article, we compare municipal bond market returns to the S&P 500 historical market returns from 1991 to 2016. You may be wondering why compare two financial instruments that are as similar as apples and oranges. The reason is simple, one instrument presents less risk and volatili...