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Municipal Bond Forum

FMSbonds, Inc.’s Municipal Bond Forum is an exclusive opportunity for investors to submit questions and comments on the bond market or to respond to one of our articles.

To participate, just send us an e-mail. Be sure to include your name or initials and your state of residence. Posted e-mails may be edited for length and clarity. If you prefer a private response, please note that in your e-mail. Responses are provided by James A. Klotz, president and co-founder of FMSbonds, Inc., a municipal bond specialist for more than 35 years, and other members of the firm as noted.

Postings are listed by date. If you have any questions, please call us at 1-800-367-2663 or e-mail us.

Premium bonds

Apr 8, 2005

I will retire in about five years and would like to have some income and also be able to keep the feds from taking so much. What do you think? My wife and I have a joint annual income of about $115,000, which puts us in the 25% federal tax bracket. We paid about $2,500 last year in federal taxes. I would like to buy muni bonds, about $75,000 worth, with a maturity date of about 10 years. I don’t mind paying premium prices based upon your explanations in other responses I read. However, will premium prices paid exceed the money we will make from interest earned over a 10-year period of time? Are munis suitable for us? I saw under one of your links – “insure bonds” – there was a column representing coupon, yield to maturity and, finally, worst yield. What is the difference between coupon and yield to maturity?

S.W.

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Laddering if interest rates jump?

Apr 8, 2005

Regarding your articles about problems with laddering: have you considered that if interest rate jumps to 10%, your original investment of $500,000 will decline? The principle investment value will be much less than $535,000.

W.L., Maryland

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Barbell?

Apr 5, 2005

I have recently refinanced property I own that had $975,000 in equity. Now, after the refinance, I have about $480,000 left in equity and I will receive about $400,000 in cash. I’m 35 and already have $150,000 in the stock market (half of that is in my retirement accounts). My federal, state and local tax rate equals about 40%. I am not really interested in buying a place to live at this time. I am very interested in buying into the bond market, with two goals in mind: decreased tax liability and increased cash flow. I’m new to your site, so am only beginning to find out that you are the first source of information of the many I’ve consulted cautioning against a laddered municipal bond portfolio. But I wonder, what your thoughts are on a barbell portfolio? Or do you think it’s best simply to go for the highest yields within my comfort zone?

N.D., New York

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Muni bond investing at 70

Mar 28, 2005

Your Web site is full of excellent and useful information on investing in municipal bonds. However, I am 70 and retired (my wife is 68) and we need to produce about $35,000 per year in after-tax income from a muni-bond portfolio for the next five years and then have it adjusted to cover cost-of-living increases as they occur. I would hope to live to 90, or about 20 years from now, which would be my investment horizon. In my case, the use of 30-year bonds would not be feasible, (in 30 years I would be 100). Therefore, what is your strategy/opinion on investing in intermediate-term munis (20- year bonds) in our particular case?

R.S., Florida

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Virginia resident, California bond funds

Mar 28, 2005

I recently inherited some shares of two tax-free California bond funds. I am a Virginia resident but have a small amount of California income from a rental property there and therefore do file a non-resident California state return along with my Virginia return. Are these type of funds generally tax-free to in-state residents only? Is there a reason for a Virginia resident to hold California bonds? My inclination is to liquidate them, though I’d be interested in your thoughts.

S.B., Virginia

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New bond issues

Mar 28, 2005

I am unable to determine how I can purchase municipal bonds during the “initial offering period” when the purchase fees are paid to the initial seller. It appears that the brokers are now buying up the bonds for their own accounts and then selling them back to their clients at an additional fee. I consider this double dipping and taking unfair advantage of their clients! How do I prevent this? What system and procedure is necessary?

F.P., Arizona

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GM

Mar 28, 2005

Can you give me your opinion on GM? Based on the legacy of the pensions and medical cost they have, their poor lineup of cars, loss of market share and high gas prices, I see no way they can avoid Chapter 11 if they want to level the playing field and be able to compete with Toyota and the likes.

J.P., Florida

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Where are we?

Mar 23, 2005

Your Web site is excellent, concise, thorough and complete. One piece of information I was not able to find was the physical location of FMSbonds. Where are your headquarters located and where do you have branch offices? Do you have any offices in New Mexico? I am kept well informed of new bond offerings by Edie Nasello, for which I am most grateful.

A.C., New Mexico

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Learning more

Mar 11, 2005

I’d like to get smarter about muni bonds. I want to learn more about bond ratings and bonds that aren’t rated (NRs). I’d like to know how to tell if the bond has been making payments and learn any important news such as credit upgrades or downgrades for the writers. Also, there are different bond types: Health Care Facility Revenue Bonds, Airport Revenue Bonds, Industrial Development Revenue Bonds, etc. What are the default risks or down sides to these different classes of bonds? How do I find out when their bond ratings were last reviewed? I’d bet that there is some honey to be found in bonds that aren’t rated, bonds whose ratings have not been reviewed in some time, bonds with higher coupons, trade below par and may be callable. I would suspect these would be available in odd lots.

C.S., Florida

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