HYMB vs NHYM

HYMBAState Street SPDR Nuveen ICE High Yield Municipal Bond ETF

NHYMBNuveen High Yield Municipal Income

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.

NHYM Most muni ETFs track an index of investment-grade paper. NHYM goes the other way: an actively run portfolio built mainly from non-investment-grade and unrated munis, reaching for tax-free income in the corner indexers skip.

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.

NHYM The Fund seeks high current income that is exempt from regular federal income tax. Capital appreciation is secondary when consistent with that primary aim.

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.

• NHYM Active out of necessity. Unrated munis have no clean index to copy, so the portfolio is built bond by bond by Nuveen's own credit analysts, the fund's stated edge.nuveen.com
• Pays monthly, and the stated primary objective is high current income exempt from regular federal income tax, with capital appreciation a secondary aim.nuveen.com
• About 300 positions spread the credit work across many small issuers rather than betting the portfolio on a handful of names.

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

• NHYM The issuer flags what the mandate implies: non-investment-grade and unrated bonds with long maturities carry credit risk and real interest-rate sensitivity.nuveen.com
• 0.35% a year sits a touch above the muni cohort's median fee. That's the toll for active credit selection instead of index replication.
• Launched in 2025 and still far smaller and thinner-traded than the muni index heavyweights (VTEB, MUB), which can show up as wider bid-ask spreads.

Full HYMB profile⁠

Full NHYM profile⁠