FMHI vs HYMB

FMHIBFirst Trust Municipal High Income ETF

HYMBAState Street SPDR Nuveen ICE High Yield Municipal Bond ETF

In short

FMHI Active muni high yield that leans in: at least half the portfolio in junk-rated or unrated bonds, hand-picked rather than indexed, with federally tax-exempt income paid monthly. Running since 2017, and priced above the category median for the credit work.

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

FMHI The Fund seeks federally tax-exempt income as its primary objective and long-term capital appreciation as its secondary objective.

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

• FMHI Does what the label says: at least 80% of net assets in bonds paying federally tax-exempt interest, spread across roughly 800 positions.ftportfolios.com
• Genuinely active, not an index in disguise. Managers choose credits bond by bond, including beaten-up issues an index-rules screen would skip.sec.govftportfolios.com
• A billion-dollar fund that pays monthly and trades at moderate volume, with a record going back to its 2017 launch rather than a recent debut.

• 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

• FMHI Costs more than the index heavyweights: above the category median, against 0.32% at HYD and 0.35% at HYMB. The stock-picking has to cover that gap.
• At least half the book is below investment grade or unrated, and the prospectus permits bonds already in default, so downgrades bite harder than in a core muni fund.sec.gov
• Clean execution of its mandate, but in a crowded high-yield muni field it lands in the lower half overall, mostly on price and credit risk.

• 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 FMHI profile⁠

Full HYMB profile⁠