Take Another Look at High-Yield Munis By Brian Gilmartin About this article: The palpable aversion to risk in the last nine months, particularly in the fourth quarter of 2008, even in the fixed-income markets, decimated both the corporate and municipal high-yield asset classes as investors fled from risk to the safety of liquidity and to only the highest of credit quality. Even high-quality, investment-grade municipal bonds saw dramatic underperformance relative to Treasuries in 2008 as institutional buyers fled the muni market, bond insurers blew up and the municipal auction rate failures added to longer-term municipal supply. Today, as we put some distance between ourselves and late 2008, while risk-aversion remains quite high, we believe longer-term individual investors with a need for portfolio diversification should consider municipal high-yield bonds as an asset class for their portfolio. We recently had a chance to talk with John Miller, the portfolio manager of the Nuveen High-Yield Municipal Bond A fund. John's fund... Or, call us at 1-866-321-TSCM (8726) Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET. Outside the U.S. and in Canada, call 1-212-321-5200.

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