Closed End Funds :: An Introduction :: Municipal Bond Closed End Fund Overview
Print
Page
Email
Page

Municipal Bond Closed-End Fund Overview

 Topics
 Related Materials

Quick Hint: Hold your mouse over any link to see a description of that document.

 Benefits

The Convenience of Stocks...With Attractive Tax-Free Dividends
It's not what you earn, it's what you keep. You know the toll federal, state and local taxes can take on your investment income and portfolio performance. And, you know that investments in tax-free municipal bonds can help you keep more of what you earn.

What’s the best way to take advantage of the benefits tax-free bonds can offer? For many, the answer may be Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Funds – investments that combine the attractive, dependable, tax-free income of municipal bonds with the listed liquidity, flexibility and convenience of common stocks.

Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Funds can help you meet a wide range of investment goals, including:

  • the ability to meet current obligations with dependable, monthly tax-free income
  • potential to achieve attractive, long-term after-tax total returns (income plus or minus any share price appreciation or depreciation)
  • diversify a portfolio otherwise comprised of taxable fixed-income and equity securities and reduce the amount of investment income subject to taxes

 The Tax-Free Advantage

  Tax-Free Yield        
  4.50% 5.00% 5.50% 6.00%
Tax Rate Taxable Equivalent Yield
25% 6.00% 6.67% 7.33% 8.00%
28% 6.25% 6.94% 7.64% 8.33%
33% 6.72% 7.46% 8.21% 8.96%
35% 6.92% 7.69% 8.46% 9.23%

As this chart shows, you would need to earn much more from a taxable investment to match the yield of a municipal bond on an after-tax basis. The taxable equivalent yield is the yield you would need to earn on a taxable investment to equal the specified tax-free yield, at the indicated rate. This chart is for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to reflect past or predict future performance for any particular investment.

 Significant Features and Services

Monthly Dividends All Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Funds pay monthly tax-free dividends directly to you or to your brokerage or bank accounts.

Convenient Reinvestment You can use your dividends to buy additional fund shares automatically, compounding your investment and providing potentially more tax-free income in the future.

Easy Liquidity You can purchase or sell common shares daily at their current price on the New York or American Stock Exchange, in an active secondary market. Like most other investments, share prices will fluctuate with the market and at the time of sale may be worth more or less than either the original purchase price or the current net asset value.

Credit Quality Almost all of Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Funds invest primarily in municipal bonds rated in one of the top four categories established by Moody's or Standard &Poor's, or in unrated bonds judged by Nuveen to be of equivalent quality. If you're looking for additional security, several Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Funds offer insured portfolios, with the timely payment of principal and interest guaranteed by insurers, or fully backed by escrow accounts containing U.S. Government or agency securities.*

*Insurance relates specifically to the payment of principal and interest on the bonds in the portfolio and not to the value of the Fund's shares. No assurance can be given about the insurer's ability to meet its commitments. This insurance is not an obligation of the U.S. Government. State-specific insured Funds are available for California, Florida, and New York only.

Portfolio Flexibility Since the number of common shares the Fund issues is fixed, the Fund's managers don't need to maintain substantial, lower-yielding cash reserves to meet day-to-day redemptions. They're also not forced to buy or sell bonds at inopportune times as cash comes into or moves out of the Fund. This helps to stabilize portfolio earnings and support steady dividend distributions.

 Investment Approach

All Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Funds are managed with Nuveen's value investing philosophy-a disciplined, systematic approach to bond selection and portfolio construction designed to provide the tax-free income you need to pursue your investment goals.

Our value investing approach avoids subjective predictions about inflation, the economy or interest rates. These factors affect the prices and yields of all bonds, of course, but they are also beyond anyone's control.

Instead of trying to guess market directions, our goal is to identify individual bonds with current yields, prices, credit quality, and future prospects that make them seem underpriced or exceptionally attractive when compared to other bonds in the market, and that have the potential to perform well under varying market conditions.

Successful value investing depends on detailed insight into both the outlook for individual issuers and the characteristics of specific bonds - information that may in some cases go beyond the common knowledge used by the market as a whole.

That's where Nuveen has an important edge. Over the years, we've developed a team of experienced portfolio managers supported by the fundamental research of skilled bond analysts.

The investment opportunities identified by our team can help position Nuveen Funds for enhanced performance if the market discovers values we have already seen.

 Risk Considerations

Investing in any long-term municipal bond investment, like a Nuveen Municipal Closed-End Fund, carries certain risks.

These include (but are not limited to):

Interest Rate Risk- Prices of municipal bonds tend to fall as interest rates rise and rise as interest rates fall. Bonds with longer maturities tend to fluctuate more in price in response to such changes. Most Nuveen Municipal Bond Funds tend to invest in longer term bonds, which means that their net asset values will fluctuate more in response to changes in interest rates than a Fund investing in shorter-term securities.

Credit Risk-Credit risk refers to an issuer's ability to make payments of principal and interest when due. An interruption in the timely payment of principal and interest may adversely affect a Fund's net asset value and ability to pay dividends.

Market Price-The shares of Closed-End Funds often trade at discount from their net asset value, and at the time of sale may be trading on the stock exchange at prices that are more or less than the purchase price or net asset value.

An investor should carefully consider fund objectives, risks, charges and expenses before investing. For this and more information on Nuveen funds, please view a prospectus. Please read it carefully before you invest or send money.