VTEB vs YYYM

VTEBAVanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF

YYYMFAmplify Municipal CEF High Income ETF

In short

VTEB Vanguard's national muni index fund, running since 2015 at three basis points, a tenth of what the typical muni ETF charges. Its benchmark screens for investment-grade bonds whose income is exempt from federal tax and the AMT.

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

VTEB VTEB seeks to track an index measuring the investment-grade segment of the U.S. municipal bond market. It uses passive sampling to approximate the index and generally invests in federally tax-exempt municipal securities.

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

• VTEB Three basis points a year against a 0.30% muni-ETF median. On tax-exempt bonds, where coupons are modest, that fee gap is a real slice of the payout.
• The index holds only investment-grade munis whose interest is exempt from federal income tax and the alternative minimum tax, so the income carries no AMT surprise.vanguard.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund and one of the most heavily traded in the muni category, which tends to show up as tight bid-ask spreads. Income is paid monthly.
• It has tracked its benchmark closely and sits among the strongest implementations in a crowded muni bond peer group.

• 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

• VTEB Federal exemption, not blanket coverage. Income can still be taxable in your home state, which is why single-state funds like NYF exist alongside it.vanguard.com
• Credit quality is investment grade, so rates are the main swing factor: when muni yields rise, bond prices and the fund's share price fall.vanguard.com
• Sampling, not full replication. The fund owns a representative slice of a very large index rather than every bond in it.vanguard.com

• 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 VTEB profile⁠

Full YYYM profile⁠