Share Price Trends for Corporate, Municipal, and Emerging Market High Yield Bond Mutual Funds: One Year and Year-to-Date Time Periods

1-Year Price Change: Corporate vs. Municipal vs. Emerging Market
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Year-to-Date Price Change: Corporate vs. Municipal vs. Emerging Market
(click chart to enlarge)

The above charts compare price changes for three major types of high yield bond mutual funds (municipal, corporate, and emerging market), over the last year (upper chart) and year-to-date (lower chart).  The charts are not intended to show total return, which would require factoring in dividend payments, but are intended to show capital gains (losses) and general market demand for each type of high yield bond fund.

Over the last year, the best performing bond fund in terms of price change, the corporate bond fund, was essentially flat, while the municipal and emerging market bond funds were down about 5 and 10 percent, respectively.  Please note, however, that the price of the corporate bond fund decreased significantly in mid-December 2013 due to a capital gain distribution, which negatively affected the share price (but not total return) during in the 1-year chart by about 2-3%.

Year-to-date (the last two months), the municipal bond fund (PRFHX), which is up about 4 percent, considerably out-performed both the corporate and emerging market bond funds, which where were up less than 2 and 1 percent, respectively. 

Will the rally in high yield municipal bond funds continue? 

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The content in this article, including the identification and discussion of any specific security (e.g., bond fund), is NOT meant to be and should NOT be construed and/or used as investment advice. This article is for general information and educational purposes only. Please read the Disclaimers  for junkbondrecycling.com in their entirety. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website has guidance on selecting an investment adviser.

Financial Disclosure:
The article author/publsher owned shares of NHINX at the time of this article, and also owned shares of high yield municipal bond fund ABHYX.