http://www.municipalbonds.com The Premier Site for Municipal Bond Investors Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:44:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The House plan for a new surtax to fund health care reform will bump the marginal tax rates above 50% in the majority of states. Check out how your state will fare should the bill pass. Click Image to Enlarge http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/11/18/potential-marginal-tax-rates-by-state/ A recent research report on welling@weeden casts an ominous shadow over the municipal bond market. Bear in mind, this is one perspective. Click below to view the official reprint. The Coming Collapse of the Municipal Bond Market - by Frederick J. Sheehan Welling@Weeden, published by financial journalist Kathryn M. Welling, is a ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/11/06/the-coming-collapse-of-the-municipal-bond-market/ Curious as to what a 'AAA' or 'BB' rating on a bond actually means? View detailed descriptions of what constitutes each of S&P's ratings here... Long-Term Issue Credit Ratings Issue credit ratings are based, in varying degrees, on the following considerations: · Likelihood of payment—capacity and willingness of the obligor to meet its ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/11/19/standard-poors-ratings-definitions/ This Moody's study, released in 2002, examines historic default rates among all Moody's-rated municipal bonds between 1970-2000. A breakdown of Moody's rating scale is also included. Moody's Municipal Bond Default Rates 1970-2000 http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/11/19/municipal-bond-default-rates-1970-2000-moodys/ The primary concern of all bond investors is whether they will ultimately get their money back. This is especially the case with municipal bond investors: Municipal bond investors willingly accept lower yields compared to other fixed income investments primarily due to the safety record of municipal bonds. When an issuer fails ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/10/18/default-rates-on-municipal-bonds-part-1/ The interest income earned from municipal bonds is tax-free of all federal income taxes regardless of your tax bracket. This is the most significant benefit of municipal bonds and it is a characteristic unique to municipal bonds. Not even US Treasuries offer income that is free from federal income taxes. Additionally, ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/01/20/tax-exemption-the-key-benefit-of-municipal-bonds/ Every municipal bond trade has 5 basic elements. The 5 elements are maturity date, interest rate, price, $ amount traded, and yield. 3 of the 5 elements are similar to the elements of a bank CD. For a CD, these are the amount invested, the length of the CD, and the ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/01/20/the-5-components-of-a-municipal-bond-investment/ This is an introduction on how to buy municipal bonds in the secondary market in the most basic sense. Individual investors can buy bonds when the bonds are originally issued or buy bonds in the secondary market after the bonds have already been issued. For the purposes of this article, ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/02/28/how-to-buy-municipal-bonds/ There are two ways to buy municipal bonds: 1) Investors can buy municipal bonds when the bonds are first issued or 2) investors can buy bonds after the bonds have been issued in the secondary market. This is similar to stocks; investors can buy stock during the IPO (initial public ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/06/26/how-to-buy-new-issues-of-municipal-bonds/ MunicipalBonds.com has launched a first-of-its-kind Composite Yield Curves for municipal bonds. Our yield curves are simple, comprehensive, and real-time. Throughout the trading day, we take every trade that happened in a given maturity year and compute an average yield on a real-time basis. Click on one of the states below ... http://www.municipalbonds.com/2009/02/17/yield-curves-for-every-state/