SCMB vs YYYM

SCMBASchwab Municipal Bond ETF

YYYMFAmplify Municipal CEF High Income ETF

In short

SCMB Schwab's take on the core muni sleeve: three basis points, thousands of AMT-free bonds from across the country, and a monthly distribution. Bottom-of-the-table pricing, no frills attached.

YYYM Amplify's closed-end-fund playbook, pointed at munis: one ticker holding roughly 30 tax-exempt muni CEFs, screened for yield, discount to NAV, and liquidity. You get other managers' bond books, and their fee stack, in a single trade.

Stated mandate

SCMB The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the total return of an index representing the U.S. AMT-free municipal bond market.

YYYM The fund seeks results generally corresponding to the price and yield performance of the Nasdaq Municipal Bond CEF High Income Index. That index selects tax-exempt municipal bond closed-end funds while prioritizing yield, discount to NAV, and liquidity.

Why people hold it

• SCMB Three basis points a year, against a 0.30% median for muni bond funds. Among the top-graded names in the category, only Vanguard's VTEB matches that fee.
• Follows the ICE AMT-Free Core U.S. National Municipal Index across thousands of bonds and issuers, so no single borrower or state drives the portfolio.
• Plain passive plumbing done well: it stays close to its index, trades actively, and pays monthly. One of the stronger implementations in the muni aisle.

• YYYM Does the screening most investors never attempt: a rules-based index ranks municipal closed-end funds on yield, discount to net asset value, and liquidity, then holds about 30 of them.amplifyetfs.com
• Federally tax-advantaged income is the stated design goal, since everything inside is a tax-exempt municipal bond CEF run by an outside manager.amplifyetfs.comamplifyetfs.com 2
• Discounts are a feature, not an accident: the methodology leans toward CEFs trading below NAV, so a dollar buys more of the underlying bond portfolio than sticker price suggests.amplifyetfs.com
• Not a first attempt. Amplify has run the same discounted-CEF screen in a multi-asset income ETF since 2013; this one narrows the machinery to municipals.amplifyetfs.cometfstrategy.com

Worth knowing

• SCMB Launched in 2022, so its live record is shorter than muni staples like MUB and VTEB, even though the strategy is the same broad-market idea.
• Bond math still applies. This is a portfolio of municipal bonds, so share prices move opposite to interest rates.
• National in scope, not single-state like NYF, so it is not built around any one state's tax rules.

• YYYM All-in cost is 2.78% a year against roughly 0.30% for the typical muni fund. In a fund of funds, the underlying CEFs' fees stack on top of the manager's.amplifyetfs.com
• Closed-end funds trade on sentiment as well as bonds, so the discounts this index hunts can widen as easily as they close, adding a layer of price swing over the muni market itself.amplifyetfs.com
• Launched in 2026, small and thinly traded, so there is no long record and execution costs weigh more than in giants like VTEB or MUB.

Full SCMB profile⁠

Full YYYM profile⁠