VanEck files four California and New York muni ladder ETFs

The four municipal series VanEck ETF Trust registered Friday would enter two state markets already occupied at scale. As of Monday, iShares' California municipal-bond fund ACMF holds $4.59 billion and charges 0.08%. Its New York counterpart ANYF holds $1.45 billion at 0.09%. Both track broad state indexes, not 0-5 or 0-10 year ladders. VanEck already slices the national municipal market by maturity and credit; these would be its first state-specific muni series. The one number that would show whether they compete with those fees is the number the paper does not print.

A Form 485APOS is the post-effective amendment used to add a new series to an existing trust. The California 0-5 and New York 0-5 filings propose effectiveness 75 days after filing under Rule 485(a)(2). All four documents are marked preliminary and subject to completion. The trust may not sell the shares until the registration statement is effective. The proposed public offering, each paper says, would begin as soon as practicable after the effective date.

California and New York 0-5 and 0-10 year ladders

The four series are the VanEck California 0-5 Year Muni Ladder ETF, VanEck California 0-10 Year Muni Ladder ETF, VanEck New York 0-5 Year Muni Ladder ETF, and VanEck New York 0-10 Year Muni Ladder ETF. Each would seek to replicate, before fees and expenses, a FTSE AMT-free state municipal ladder index. The preliminary prospectuses label them CAV, CAX, NYV, and NYX.

The California 0-10 and New York 0-10 filings say each index contains ten equal-weighted rungs and that the rung structure rolls forward at each monthly reconstitution. That is a persistent ladder, not a defined-maturity portfolio that liquidates in a stated year. The 0-5 year filings name parallel FTSE 0-5 year ladder indexes.

Shareholder fees are listed as none. Management fee, other expenses, and total annual fund operating expenses are not filled in. Where the adviser describes an expense-payment undertaking, it excludes management fees, acquired-fund fees and expenses, interest, offering costs, trading expenses, taxes, and extraordinary expenses. Brokerage commissions and intermediary fees, the papers note, are not reflected in the table.

Listed muni ladder ETFs remain in the millions

Municipal ladder ETFs that already list are national, and most are defined-maturity funds that wind down in a stated year. Northern Trust's 2030 tax-exempt distributing ladder BMUNA holds $8 million; its 2036 counterpart —MUNF, listed in late August, holds $5 million. The 2035 ladder MUNB holds $14 million. WisdomTree's core laddered municipal fund BWTMU, an actively managed national ladder, holds $9 million. None of those products is California- or New York-specific.

Invesco's long California AMT-free fund BPWZ holds $1.21 billion at 0.28%. AllianceBernstein's actively managed California intermediate fund ACAM holds $1.20 billion at 0.27%. The closest short California product already trading, the actively managed short-term California fund BCALI, holds $495 million and charges 0.25%.

Friday's paper would put a rolling state ladder on California and New York through a structure whose listed versions still hold assets in the millions, against single-state funds that already hold billions.