CGHM vs HYMB

CGHMACapital Group Municipal High-Income ETF

HYMBAState Street SPDR Nuveen ICE High Yield Municipal Bond ETF

In short

CGHM Index high-yield muni funds stop where the ratings stop. CGHM is Capital Group's active version: built to lean into lower-rated and unrated tax-exempt bonds, with the income paid out monthly.

HYMB Most muni index funds stop at investment grade. HYMB keeps going: its benchmark reaches from A-rated paper down through unrated deals, spreading roughly 1,900 tax-exempt bonds across that credit line. Income lands monthly.

Stated mandate

CGHM The fund seeks a high level of current income that is exempt from regular federal income tax.

HYMB The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the ICE US Select High Yield Crossover Municipal Index, which covers lower-rated and unrated tax-exempt municipal debt issued in the United States.

Why people hold it

• CGHM The mandate is the whole point: at least 60% in bonds rated BBB+/Baa1 or below, or unrated, the corner of the muni market index funds cap or skip.yahoo.comcapitalgroup.com
• Income lands monthly and is exempt from regular federal income tax, spread across roughly 600 bond positions rather than a few big credits.
• A young fund that is already a multi-billion-dollar one, and what it holds lines up closely with the mandate it advertises.
• Sits in the upper half of the muni ETF field we grade, a solid showing for an active fund fishing in the market's messier waters.

• HYMB The crossover mandate is the whole point: the index covers lower-rated (A3/A+ or lower) and unrated tax-exempt debt, not another top-grade general-obligation ladder.ssga.com
• About 1,900 bonds dilute any single issuer's trouble, and State Street has run the fund since 2011, through more than one muni credit scare.
• One of the more actively traded funds in the muni ETF aisle, which counts in a market where the underlying bonds themselves can sit still for weeks. Pays monthly.

Worth knowing

• CGHM At 0.34% it runs above the 0.30% muni cohort median, and well above plain index core muni funds like VTEB (0.03%) and MUB (0.05%).
• Lower-rated and unrated munis carry more credit and liquidity risk than investment-grade muni funds, so swings can be sharper when credit gets stressed.yahoo.com
• Launched in 2024, so the history here is short and has not yet run through a full credit cycle.

• HYMB 0.35% a year is the toll for assembling illiquid paper. Broad, plain-vanilla muni index funds such as VTEB and SCMB charge 0.03%.
• Lower-rated and unrated munis carry default and downgrade risk that top-rated general-obligation bonds don't, and prices can move sharply when muni buyers step back.
• The benchmark has been swapped before (Bloomberg to ICE in 2025), so older track records reflect a different index than the one the fund follows now.ssga.com

Full CGHM profile⁠

Full HYMB profile⁠