Factor Investing Strategy Briefing - Thursday 29th June 2023 - The Connaught, Mayfair. Please join us for our annual smart beta and factor investing event, featuring Goldman Sachs Asset Management, FlexShares, First Trust, MSCI and WisdomTree. Please register now if you would like to attend.
State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has made changes to the $900 million SPDR Nuveen S&P High Yield Municipal Bond ETF (HYMB US) which sees the fund ditch index provider S&P Dow Jones Indices in favour of Bloomberg.

SSGA has changed index provider on the SPDR Nuveen S&P High Yield Municipal Bond ETF in favour of Bloomberg.
Effective 1 October 2019, the ETF has ceased tracking the S&P Municipal Yield Index and begun following the Bloomberg Barclays Municipal Yield Index.
The two indices are broadly similar. Both provide diversified exposure to the tax-exempt USD-denominated municipal bond market, covering bonds from four main sectors: state and local general obligation bonds, revenue bonds, insured bonds, and pre-refunded bonds.
Additionally, both indices allocate roughly three-quarters of their exposure to bonds with non-investment-grade ratings or those which are unrated. The remaining weight is dedicated to bonds rated investment grade, particularly those in the ‘BBB’ and ‘A’ categories, in a bid to enhance liquidity.
The Bloomberg Barclays index has a modified duration of 6.2 years, compared to 5.6 for the S&P version.
To reflect the change in index provider, the fund has adopted a new name – the SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Barclays High Yield Municipal Bond ETF. Its ticker symbol and expense ratio of 0.35% remain unchanged.
The two other funds in SSGA’s suite of muni bond ETFs exclusively target securities with investment grade ratings. They are the $2.9 billion SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Barclays Municipal Bond ETF (TFI US), which provides broad exposure to bonds with maturities between 1 and 25 years, and the $3.6bn SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Barclays Short Term Municipal Bond ETF (SHM US), which targets the shorter end of the yield curve.