HYMB vs JMHI

HYMBAState Street SPDR Nuveen ICE High Yield Municipal Bond ETF

JMHIBJPMorgan High Yield Municipal ETF

In short

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.

JMHI A 2007-vintage JPMorgan muni strategy that traded its mutual fund shell for an ETF wrapper in 2023. Actively run, free to lean all the way into below-investment-grade munis, built around federally tax-exempt income paid monthly.

Stated mandate

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.

JMHI The Fund seeks a high level of current income exempt from federal income taxes by investing in tax-exempt municipal securities, with an emphasis on high-yield municipal bonds.

Why people hold it

• 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.

• JMHI No index to hug. Managers pick the bonds, and the fund may hold up to 100% in below-investment-grade municipals, the corner of the muni market that carries the higher yields.jpmorgan.com
• The mandate is narrow and the fund sticks to it: municipal securities whose income is exempt from federal income tax, with cash paid out monthly.
• Credit risk is spread across roughly 300 municipal positions rather than a few concentrated issuer bets.
• Not a startup strategy. It ran as a mutual fund from 2007 and converted to an ETF in July 2023, so the approach has a long paper trail behind the ticker.jpmorgan.com

Worth knowing

• 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

• JMHI At 0.52%, with no fee waiver, the cost sits above the category median and above index-based rivals HYD (0.32%) and HYMB (0.35%). Active bond picking is what the premium buys.
• Permission to hold up to 100% below-investment-grade munis cuts both ways: default and liquidity risk are real, and the issuer flags the greater degree of risk itself.jpmorgan.com
• Trading is moderate rather than heavy for the category, which tends to show up in bid-ask spreads on larger orders.

Full HYMB profile⁠

Full JMHI profile⁠