Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

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zzz
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by zzz »

I was talking about money markets which would be taxed as ordinary income at your ordinary income rate. Interest or dividend rates would not be added to ordinary income rates. If you were in the 12% ordinary income bracket and 15% in the qualified dividend bracket you would not pay 27% on ordinary income, interest or dividends. $100 of ordinary interest would pay 12% or $12 in a 12% ordinary income bracket, not $27.
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ofckrupke
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by ofckrupke »

zzz wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:27 pm $100 of ordinary interest would pay 12% or $12 in a 12% ordinary income bracket, not $27.
But for someone with ordinary income in the 12% bracket and with QDIV/LTCG draped atop that into the 15% QDIV bracket (so that some of the QDIV was taxed at 0% and some at 15%), $100 more ordinary interest would cause $12 more ordinary interest taxation and would also push $100 of the QDIV out of 0% taxation and into 15% taxation, so the resulting increase in federal tax would be $27. And that's where Kevin finds himself.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by zzz »

Thanks for responding. Our tax system is even more insidious than I imagined.
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Kevin M
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

ofckrupke wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:00 am
zzz wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:27 pm $100 of ordinary interest would pay 12% or $12 in a 12% ordinary income bracket, not $27.
But for someone with ordinary income in the 12% bracket and with QDIV/LTCG draped atop that into the 15% QDIV bracket (so that some of the QDIV was taxed at 0% and some at 15%), $100 more ordinary interest would cause $12 more ordinary interest taxation and would also push $100 of the QDIV out of 0% taxation and into 15% taxation, so the resulting increase in federal tax would be $27. And that's where Kevin finds himself.
Hmm, I thought that's basically what I said, but I guess you did a better job of explaining it in a way that zzz understood.

For anyone who wants to see this effect without understanding exactly how it works, run TaxCaster, enter MFJ filing status, ages 30,30, enter 0 for everything until you get to the "Select from all that apply to you ..." screen, select "Have investments" then continue, then enter 0's until you get to Taxable Interest. Enter 50,000 for taxable interest, then 50,000 for qualified dividends (but don't leave this screen). You will see tax of 3,946. Now click Back and enter 51,000 for taxable interest, and your tax will increase to 4,246, which is 300 more. So you added 1,000 of ordinary income, and you were taxed 300 more, which is 30%. This is 15% tax on the interest and 15% of additional QD taxed at 15%. In 2018 the ordinary income will be taxed at 12% instead.

Of course there are other ways you could enter data into TaxCaster to see the effect, but I just choose the quickest and easiest with minimal data entry.

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by zzz »

It is what you said, I just had trouble believing it actually was that bad.
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Riley15
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Riley15 »

Kevin M wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:17 pm
ofckrupke wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:00 am
zzz wrote: Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:27 pm $100 of ordinary interest would pay 12% or $12 in a 12% ordinary income bracket, not $27.
But for someone with ordinary income in the 12% bracket and with QDIV/LTCG draped atop that into the 15% QDIV bracket (so that some of the QDIV was taxed at 0% and some at 15%), $100 more ordinary interest would cause $12 more ordinary interest taxation and would also push $100 of the QDIV out of 0% taxation and into 15% taxation, so the resulting increase in federal tax would be $27. And that's where Kevin finds himself.
Hmm, I thought that's basically what I said, but I guess you did a better job of explaining it in a way that zzz understood.

For anyone who wants to see this effect without understanding exactly how it works, run TaxCaster, enter MFJ filing status, ages 30,30, enter 0 for everything until you get to the "Select from all that apply to you ..." screen, select "Have investments" then continue, then enter 0's until you get to Taxable Interest. Enter 50,000 for taxable interest, then 50,000 for qualified dividends (but don't leave this screen). You will see tax of 3,946. Now click Back and enter 51,000 for taxable interest, and your tax will increase to 4,246, which is 300 more. So you added 1,000 of ordinary income, and you were taxed 300 more, which is 30%. This is 15% tax on the interest and 15% of additional QD taxed at 15%. In 2018 the ordinary income will be taxed at 12% instead.

Of course there are other ways you could enter data into TaxCaster to see the effect, but I just choose the quickest and easiest with minimal data entry.

Kevin
I am not sure if I am still understanding this correctly. If you are in the 12% tax bracket for ordinary income, any amount of QDIV/LTCP should be taxed at the 0% rate correct. Whether it is 20k or 200k. If you add another $100 to your ordinary income and still stay in the 12% tax bracket, I don't see why this should affect the QDIV/LTCP tax rate?
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by mega317 »

Riley15 wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:09 pm If you are in the 12% tax bracket for ordinary income, any amount of QDIV/LTCP should be taxed at the 0% rate correct. Whether it is 20k or 200k.
That is not true. Work through a dummy 1040 line 44 and schedule D.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

mega317 wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:35 pm
Riley15 wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:09 pm If you are in the 12% tax bracket for ordinary income, any amount of QDIV/LTCP should be taxed at the 0% rate correct. Whether it is 20k or 200k.
That is not true. Work through a dummy 1040 line 44 and schedule D.
Yes, using the Schedule D worksheet is a good way to see how the calculation works. This is a deeper dive than simply using TaxCaster to prove to yourself that it actually does work this way--you should at least try the latter if you don't believe it.

Using the 2017 forms and worksheets the bracket we're discussing is 15%, which will be 12% in 2018, but the QD/LTCG rate we're discussing remains at 15% for 2018. Also, the dividing line between 12% and 22% ordinary income brackets and 0% and 15% QD/LTCG brackets is slightly different, but for conceptual purposes we can ignore it. The principal works basically the same for 2018 as for 2017, keeping these differences in mind.

I'll use the numbers I threw out earlier and run it through a dummy 2017 tax return using HRBlock software. I enter 50,000 of interest income and 50,000 of qualified dividends. This is an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100K.

For two married 30-year olds filing a joint return (MFJ), standard deduction is 12,700 and exemption amount is 8,100, leaving 79,200 of taxable income. This is entered on Line 1 of the Schedule D Tax Worksheet, which is used to calculate your tax if you have QD and/or LTCG and no depreciation recapture.

Subtracting the 50,000 of QD leaves 29,200 of income taxed at ordinary rates. Next, subtract 29,200 from 75,900 (top of 15% bracket for MFJ) to get 46,700 of QD that is taxed at 0%. This leaves 3,300 of QD taxed at 15%. Since 29,200 is above the top of the 2017 10% bracket, 18,650, your marginal tax rate on ordinary income is 15%.

You can visualize this as the QD/LTCG stacked on top of the ordinary income. Whatever part of the QD/LTCG stack is above the top of the 15% bracket is taxed at 15%, and whatever is below is taxed at 0%. Every extra dollar of ordinary income pushes a dollar of LTCG/QD above the top of the 15% bracket, and thus an extra dollar of LTCG/QD is taxed at 15% instead of 0%, and the extra dollar of ordinary income is taxed at 15%, for total marginal tax rate of 30% (27% in 2018).

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by kaneohe »

Riley15 wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:09 pm ........................................................

I am not sure if I am still understanding this correctly. If you are in the 12% tax bracket for ordinary income, any amount of QDIV/LTCP should be taxed at the 0% rate correct. Whether it is 20k or 200k. If you add another $100 to your ordinary income and still stay in the 12% tax bracket, I don't see why this should affect the QDIV/LTCP tax rate?
Kevin has written a very detailed explanation of this. The stacked bar chart is a very nice way of visualizing things. For a real picture, see tfb's chart here posted 12/11/11 viewtopic.php?t=86849

Your misconception is fairly common when reading just words.....it could be either the words
or the reader's misunderstanding of the words. The basic concept is that the determination
of the QDIV/LTCG rate is determined by the tax bracket of the taxable income INCLUDING the QDIV/LTCG, not just the ordinary income. The misconception is that if ordinary income is in the 12% bracket, QDIV/LTCG rate is 0% regardless of how large the QDIV/LTCG gain . This is not true because the QDIV/LTCG raises the tax bracket of the taxable income even tho the ordinary income may remain in the lower bracket.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by neurosphere »

Just for fun, I plotted the SEC yields for the Vanguard NY Municipal bond fund vs those for the Limited and Short Term Tax Exempt bond funds. I converted the yields into taxable equivalent yields for the highest tax brackets for IRS and NYS/NYC (I used 37% federal and 12% NYS/NYC). I did not take into account any additional medicare tax or net investment income tax. I also did not attempt to deal with any NY income in the national funds which would be tax free to a NY/NYC resident.

I'm curious how long this small yield spread between muni MM funds and other funds will persist.

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Voltron »

I always see posters create nice graphs. What resource do use to create the graph? Visualization is helpful.

What I want to do is create a graph for example a California resident in different federal tax brackets. It might help me decide my goals.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by neurosphere »

Voltron wrote: Thu Apr 19, 2018 12:51 pm I always see posters create nice graphs. What resource do use to create the graph? Visualization is helpful.

What I want to do is create a graph for example a California resident in different federal tax brackets. It might help me decide my goals.
I used excel 2016.
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bligh
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by bligh »

Is the quarter end bump still going on?

I took a look at the muni money market funds and the SEC yields are superb (compared to Savings accounts if you are in a higher tax bracket of course)..

VMSXX (Muni Money Market) - 1.54%
VCTXX (CA Muni Money Market) - 1.46%
VYFXX (NY Muni Money Market) - 1.53%

If these yields aren't just a temporary quarter end spike, this is great. It is almost catching up to the yield of the Vanguard short term tax exempt bond fund. Remember though, you're still loosing to inflation but the cost is a lot less than before.

The place I am currently parking my Cash reserves is VMLUX (Limited term tax exempt).. there is hardly any NAV movement and the current yield (2.06%). Finally I can once again hold liquid cash that keeps up with inflation!*


* I do max out I-Bonds but they are not part of my cash reserves.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by crystalbank »

bligh wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:10 am Is the quarter end bump still going on?

I took a look at the muni money market funds and the SEC yields are superb (compared to Savings accounts if you are in a higher tax bracket of course)..

VMSXX (Muni Money Market) - 1.54%
VCTXX (CA Muni Money Market) - 1.46%
VYFXX (NY Muni Money Market) - 1.53%

If these yields aren't just a temporary quarter end spike, this is great. It is almost catching up to the yield of the Vanguard short term tax exempt bond fund. Remember though, you're still loosing to inflation but the cost is a lot less than before.

The place I am currently parking my Cash reserves is VMLUX (Limited term tax exempt).. there is hardly any NAV movement and the current yield (2.06%). Finally I can once again hold liquid cash that keeps up with inflation!*


* I do max out I-Bonds but they are not part of my cash reserves.
Thanks for the VMLUX tip. I think it's a better yield for CA investors than CA Muni Money Market to put cash reserves.
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Kevin M
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

crystalbank wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:19 am
bligh wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:10 am The place I am currently parking my Cash reserves is VMLUX (Limited term tax exempt).. there is hardly any NAV movement and the current yield (2.06%). Finally I can once again hold liquid cash that keeps up with inflation!*
Thanks for the VMLUX tip. I think it's a better yield for CA investors than CA Muni Money Market to put cash reserves.
VMLUX is not cash, it's bonds. Of course the yield is better than a MM fund--you're getting compensated for taking some term risk and some credit risk.

NAV is not stable. It has declined from 10.90 on 1/8/2018 to 10.80 yesterday, so capital return of -0.92% (so a loss of almost 1%). Yield on 1/8/2018 was 1.78%, so you've lost about half of your expected return in less than four months.

Average duration of the fund is 2.5 years, so you really can't compare to a fund with a duration of 0-years. I have been buying 2-year to 3-year AA/AAA munis, and of course am getting higher yields than in CA muni MM at the time of purchase--I wouldn't buy them otherwise. But I don't consider them cash, other than maybe the ones maturing within a month (that I bought maybe three months ago, and at the time weren't cash).

I bought some of this fund in January 2018, and added a little bit to it in February. My capital return is -$637.56 and my income return is +$280.18, for total return of -$357.38. That's not cash.

Kevin
Last edited by Kevin M on Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by invstar »

I am looking at a Aa2/AA muni bond (CUSIP: 839278EP9) and it contains "Subject To - Sinking Fund 11/18@89.49" in it's description. What does it mean? Can I buy it? Issue name is South Pasadena Calif Uni Sch Dist - Election Of 1995.

Thanks.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by zzz »

Kevin M wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:33 pm
crystalbank wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:19 am
bligh wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:10 am The place I am currently parking my Cash reserves is VMLUX (Limited term tax exempt).. there is hardly any NAV movement and the current yield (2.06%). Finally I can once again hold liquid cash that keeps up with inflation!*
Thanks for the VMLUX tip. I think it's a better yield for CA investors than CA Muni Money Market to put cash reserves.
VMLUX is not cash, it's bonds. Of course the yield is better than a MM fund--you're getting compensated for taking some term risk and some credit risk.

NAV is not stable. It has declined from 10.90 on 1/8/2018 to 10.80 yesterday, so capital return of -0.92% (so a loss of almost 1%). Yield on 1/8/2018 was 1.78%, so you've lost about half of your expected return in less than four months.

Average duration of the fund is 2.5 years, so you really can't compare to a fund with a duration of 0-years. I have been buying 2-year to 3-year AA/AAA munis, and of course am getting higher yields than in CA muni MM at the time of purchase--I wouldn't buy them otherwise. But I don't consider them cash, other than maybe the ones maturing within a month (that I bought maybe three months ago, and at the time weren't cash).

I bought some of this fund in January 2018, and added a little bit to it in February. My capital return is -$637.56 and my income return is +$280.18, for total return of -$357.38. That's not cash.

Kevin

Kevin
Absolutely, if interest rates are going up, the principal of bonds are going down. With rates rising, the money market is the best place to be , unless you believe rates have peaked, in which case you would want a longer duration fund than that. That said, I do have some VMLUX myself in case I'm wrong about rates going up :wink: (but I don't have anything with a longer duration).
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by bligh »

Kevin M wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 5:33 pm
crystalbank wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:19 am
bligh wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 11:10 am The place I am currently parking my Cash reserves is VMLUX (Limited term tax exempt).. there is hardly any NAV movement and the current yield (2.06%). Finally I can once again hold liquid cash that keeps up with inflation!*
Thanks for the VMLUX tip. I think it's a better yield for CA investors than CA Muni Money Market to put cash reserves.
VMLUX is not cash, it's bonds. Of course the yield is better than a MM fund--you're getting compensated for taking some term risk and some credit risk.

NAV is not stable. It has declined from 10.90 on 1/8/2018 to 10.80 yesterday, so capital return of -0.92% (so a loss of almost 1%). Yield on 1/8/2018 was 1.78%, so you've lost about half of your expected return in less than four months.

Average duration of the fund is 2.5 years, so you really can't compare to a fund with a duration of 0-years. I have been buying 2-year to 3-year AA/AAA munis, and of course am getting higher yields than in CA muni MM at the time of purchase--I wouldn't buy them otherwise. But I don't consider them cash, other than maybe the ones maturing within a month (that I bought maybe three months ago, and at the time weren't cash).

I bought some of this fund in January 2018, and added a little bit to it in February. My capital return is -$637.56 and my income return is +$280.18, for total return of -$357.38. That's not cash.

Kevin

Kevin
Agreed. If you cannot tolerate even a little NAV instability, I definitely wouldn't recommend it. However my cash reserves don't need to be an exact dollar amount, the NAV is stable enough that I could sell part of my holdings in a pinch without taking a huge hit. I look at it as a choice between a guaranteed negative real return on my cash reserves in a money market fund, vs a possible negative real return in VMLUX. If someone wants to make a bet on which direction interest rates are moving short term that is up to them.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

bligh wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:16 pmIf you cannot tolerate even a little NAV instability, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
The issue isn't ability to tolerate NAV instability, the issue is that your definition of cash or short-term reserves is way off the mark (Vanguard only classifies money market funds as short-term reserves). I wouldn't call a loss of almost 1% in less than four months "a little NAV instability" with initial yield at about 1.8%. Losing 50% of your initial yield in four months is not a little NAV instability.

I can tolerate NAV instability in my bond funds--I expect it. I just don't call my bond funds cash. My definition of cash is something with no term risk.

Some people consider any fixed income with maturity of less than one year cash (and even by this definition VMLUX would not qualify), but I don't. A 1-year Treasury I might have bought at 1.7% in December has lost value with the 6-month yield now at 2.05%. For me, cash does not lose nominal value.

This thread is about muni money market yields looking good compared to other actual "cash" alternatives, like bank accounts. Cash has no term risk, and VMLUX has significant term risk compared to no term risk.

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by bligh »

Kevin M wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 8:00 pm
bligh wrote: Tue Apr 24, 2018 7:16 pmIf you cannot tolerate even a little NAV instability, I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
The issue isn't ability to tolerate NAV instability, the issue is that your definition of cash or short-term reserves is way off the mark (Vanguard only classifies money market funds as short-term reserves). I wouldn't call a loss of almost 1% in less than four months "a little NAV instability" with initial yield at about 1.8%. Losing 50% of your initial yield in four months is not a little NAV instability.

I can tolerate NAV instability in my bond funds--I expect it. I just don't call my bond funds cash. My definition of cash is something with no term risk.

Some people consider any fixed income with maturity of less than one year cash (and even by this definition VMLUX would not qualify), but I don't. A 1-year Treasury I might have bought at 1.7% in December has lost value with the 6-month yield now at 2.05%. For me, cash does not lose nominal value.

This thread is about muni money market yields looking good compared to other actual "cash" alternatives, like bank accounts. Cash has no term risk, and VMLUX has significant term risk compared to no term risk.

Kevin
I respect your definition of Cash (or more accurately cash equivalents.. since literal cash is bank notes and coins sitting in a drawer).. , and don't think it is incorrect. However it isn't the only definition for it..

For example, here is a link to the latest Apple's recent 10-K Filing with the SEC : http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ ... Filed_.pdf .

If you scroll down to page 49 the section on "Note 2 – Financial Instruments Cash, Cash Equivalents and Marketable Securities". You'll notice that when people refer to Apple's "$280 billion cash hoard" .. they include Corporate Bonds (the vast majority), Municipal bonds, treasuries, Mortgage backed securities, etc. They even give you the approximate duration - "The maturities of the Company’s long-term marketable securities generally range from one to five years." They hold only about $9B in cash and $8B in Money market funds. Do a google search, you wont find a single news story talking about "Apple's $17B Cash hoard". I bet you would see something similar for any other company when it refers to its cash reserves.

Cash reserves can be (and are) kept in tiers. I have my checking accounts, I have my savings accounts/mm funds, or Short term bond funds. I am choosing to hold my cash reserves at a tier slightly lower than a money market right now, I am accepting a little term risk or minor NAV instability as part of it. I may even split my cash reserves between Money Market and Short term bond funds if the interest rate rises further.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

Like I said, institutional investors might define cash as any low credit risk fixed-income security with maturity of less than one year. Apple takes it much further, which makes little sense to me, but as long as one defines what one means by cash, the impacted parties understand.

I tend to just think in terms of fixed income, and then evaluate credit risk and term risk. This thread is about muni money market funds, so 0-year duration and minimal term risk. I don't see much point in bringing bond funds into the discussion.

I have another thread going on muni bonds, one on CDs, and one on yield curves. In all of these I'm mentioning that maturities of less than three years look the best in terms of reward/risk, since yield curves are relatively steep in that range, and relatively flat beyond that. Limited-term muni fund fits in those contexts (and as I mentioned, I own some). Why don't you jump on over to the muni bond thread and we can debate the merits of limited-term muni fund vs. individual munis: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=246916 .

Or jump on over to the yield curve thread, and we can debate how much sense it makes to extend maturity beyond three years, as limited-term bond fund does with about 50% of its holdings (and 27% more than 5-year maturity). viewtopic.php?f=10&t=247796 .

At any rate, by your definition, I have a huge amount of short-term reserves--call it second-level if you want--but I certainly don't think of any of those holdings as cash.

No way am I dipping into my limited-term bond fund after it's lost almost 1% in value since I bought it (unless I wanted to harvest the tax loss). Nor will I be selling any of my individual CDs, Treasuries, or muni bonds before maturity. Some of those munis will start maturing next month, and I have a large amount of CDs in taxable maturing later this year. Any excess liquidity needs before then will be met from my CA muni MM fund, which hasn't lost a penny, and of course is only increasing in value as dividends are accrued daily.

A common guideline is to match duration of assets to duration of liabilities. With a duration of 2.5 years, limited-term bond fund is more appropriate to meet liabilities in a few years than in a few months. Of course you and anyone else is free to do whatever you want, regardless of how rational or irrational it is.

With respect to losing to inflation, you've been losing even more to inflation with VMLUX in recent months than with a muni money market fund. Even in the last year this is true, with the 1-year returns of muni money market funds being higher than that of limited-term or short-term muni bond fund.

I also can sell stocks if I want to raise cash, so it's all reserves of some sort--call it level 3 if you want. I'd just rather not be forced to sell when market conditions are unfavorable.

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

CA Muni MM seems to have started its drift down in yield, now at 1.41% (as of 5/3), down from a high of 1.47% from 4/24 through 4/26. The recent low was 0.87% on 2/15. Current yield is TEY of 2.17% for me--still much better than Prime MM at 1.83%.

Note that Prime MM has not drifted down, but has steadily increased, now at 1.83%. So CA Muni MM still is 34 bps higher TEY at this point for me. I consider Prime MM that backstop, as it's still higher than the no-penalty 1.75% Ally CD I broke, and from which much went into CA Muni MM.

Kevin
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by WanderingDoc »

Just put the first $25K into the Vanguard Muni MM fund. There is a 7-day hold on the funds.. "this account has umavailable shares". I then link my Ally account to Vanguard (after 2 days verifying microdeposits), and yet another 7-10 days until this account is fully verified. They claim I can still use this account to put money into Vanguard, just not out of.

This is a bit frustrating, waiting literally 14 days until all this is settled. Anyone know any way around this?
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by UpperNwGuy »

WanderingDoc wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 1:50 am Just put the first $25K into the Vanguard Muni MM fund. There is a 7-day hold on the funds.. "this account has umavailable shares". I then link my Ally account to Vanguard (after 2 days verifying microdeposits), and yet another 7-10 days until this account is fully verified. They claim I can still use this account to put money into Vanguard, just not out of.

This is a bit frustrating, waiting literally 14 days until all this is settled. Anyone know any way around this?
This is Vanguard’s process for verifying a new bank account. The only way around it is to move the funds by ACH from your new bank account to another of your bank accounts that has previously been verified and then transfer the funds to Vanguard. I tried to get them to shorten the process for me a few months ago, but they would not. I don’t think they actually do anything during those 7-10 days after the microdeposits clear. They just allow time to pass in case a problem turns up.
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Kevin M
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

WanderingDoc wrote: Sat May 05, 2018 1:50 am Just put the first $25K into the Vanguard Muni MM fund. There is a 7-day hold on the funds.. "this account has umavailable shares". I then link my Ally account to Vanguard (after 2 days verifying microdeposits), and yet another 7-10 days until this account is fully verified. They claim I can still use this account to put money into Vanguard, just not out of.

This is a bit frustrating, waiting literally 14 days until all this is settled. Anyone know any way around this?
I was able to get around this, but it took almost an hour on the phone with Vanguard to handle both aspects. I actually got around the first one another time more quickly.

To get around the 7-day hold on the funds, fist call Vanguard and ask them if they can verify receipt of the funds. The first time I did this, they were able to verify that they had received the funds, even though their systems still had the hold in place, and they were able to override the hold. If they can't verify that they've received the funds, they can call Ally and ask Ally if they can verify that the funds will clear. This is what they did the second time I dealt with this, and it worked.

To get around the bank verification hold, I was put in touch with a rep in a department that specifically deals with this. She asked me some security questions, like the ones you get when your are going through an online identification verification (e.g., "which of these addresses have you lived at in the past?"). After successfully answering those questions, she was able to authorize a one-time exception to the bank verification hold.

After these two steps, the Vanguard rep was able to manually enter the order to sell shares of the MM fund and transfer the proceeds to the bank being verified.

In my case it was a cash management account (CMA) I had just opened at Fidelity, with the sole purpose of being able to transfer money quickly from Vanguard to Fidelity (without going through Ally bank as an intermediate step). Fidelity doesn't have competitive MM funds, but has better muni bond prices, so I keep my muni cash at Vanguard, then after executing a muni bond purchase as Fidelity, I sell shares of CA muni MM and indicate the Fidelity CMA as the receiving bank. The cash arrives in the Fidelity CMA in one or two business days, so in time for settlement, at which time I transfer the cash from the CMA to my brokerage settlement fund (which basically is instant).

I wanted to buy some munis right after I had transferred a boatload of cash from Ally (early withdrawals from no-penalty CDs) to CA muni MM, which lead to the hour on the phone with Vanguard. If doing this again, I wouldn't transfer the entire amount to Vanguard, but would keep enough at Ally to cover liquidity needs for the next week.

Note that although it's difficult to get the cash out of Vanguard until the verification and/or hold time(s) are up, you can use the cash immediately to buy shares of other Vanguard funds, and then the hold transfers to the newly purchased shares of the other fund.

Also, not sure if it's true, but the Vanguard rep told me if I set up voice identification, I wouldn't have to go through the security verification process again to get a one-time exception to the bank verification hold. The rep transferred me to an automated voice identification setup system, but it asked for my "client ID", and I didn't know what to enter, so I haven't done that yet.

Kevin
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MnD
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by MnD »

In comparison, it took 1 day to open an account, set up "instant" links to external accounts and transfer funds in to a Schwab brokerage account and trade those funds (my trade was a purchased MM fund). They put a 7-day hold on the transferred-in funds to transfer any out of the account, but I could trade them immediately. Instructions indicated not every external account would qualify for the instant link setup (versus micro-deposit verification), but mine did.
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Kevin M
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

MnD wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 12:06 pm In comparison, it took 1 day to open an account, set up "instant" links to external accounts and transfer funds in to a Schwab brokerage account and trade those funds (my trade was a purchased MM fund). They put a 7-day hold on the transferred-in funds to transfer any out of the account, but I could trade them immediately. Instructions indicated not every external account would qualify for the instant link setup (versus micro-deposit verification), but mine did.
What are you responding to? The previous reply was about transferring funds out of the brokerage account, not using the funds to trade within the account. It might not be instant, but the latter takes 1-2 business days at Vanguard (to do the micro deposit thing).

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by WanderingDoc »

Seems like all is cleared. Not bad. Does anyone know how the interest is accrued in VMSXX? So far it just lists my principal amount. And on the "balances and holdings" page, under the 'change' it just has ---- ---- . Is the interest added to your account monthly?
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by Kevin M »

WanderingDoc wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 3:15 pm Seems like all is cleared. Not bad. Does anyone know how the interest is accrued in VMSXX? So far it just lists my principal amount. And on the "balances and holdings" page, under the 'change' it just has ---- ---- . Is the interest added to your account monthly?
It accrues daily and is credited monthly. You can see the daily accruals by looking at the balance by date view in balances and holdings. If you were to sell all shares of the fund mid-month, you would receive the accrued dividends as well as the principal value you see in balances and holdings.

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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

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Kevin M wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 3:37 pm
WanderingDoc wrote: Wed May 09, 2018 3:15 pm Seems like all is cleared. Not bad. Does anyone know how the interest is accrued in VMSXX? So far it just lists my principal amount. And on the "balances and holdings" page, under the 'change' it just has ---- ---- . Is the interest added to your account monthly?
It accrues daily and is credited monthly. You can see the daily accruals by looking at the balance by date view in balances and holdings. If you were to sell all shares of the fund mid-month, you would receive the accrued dividends as well as the principal value you see in balances and holdings.

Kevin
Thanks!
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

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neurosphere wrote: Thu Apr 19, 2018 9:23 am Just for fun, I plotted the SEC yields for the Vanguard NY Municipal bond fund vs those for the Limited and Short Term Tax Exempt bond funds. I converted the yields into taxable equivalent yields for the highest tax brackets for IRS and NYS/NYC (I used 37% federal and 12% NYS/NYC). I did not take into account any additional medicare tax or net investment income tax. I also did not attempt to deal with any NY income in the national funds which would be tax free to a NY/NYC resident.

I'm curious how long this small yield spread between muni MM funds and other funds will persist.
Yield spread may have disappeared. I was shocked to see that CA muni mm now yield 1.33, down from 1.47 then 1.43 when this thread was trending. Nothing happened on Fed rate or other mm fund, so why the drop in CA mm?

neurosphere, where did you find the daily SEC yield data? I looked at Vanguard fund page and all I can find is daily price or distribution yield for export. I want to make a graph to see if it's time to shift to limited term tax exempt.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

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BlackcatCA wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 9:56 am Yield spread may have disappeared. I was shocked to see that CA muni mm now yield 1.33, down from 1.47 then 1.43 when this thread was trending. Nothing happened on Fed rate or other mm fund, so why the drop in CA mm?
Schwab Muni MM had dropped from 1.4X a few weeks ago to 1.23%. I guess the lesson learned is that anomalous free lunches don't stick around forever. Its easy to switch to Prime MM or t-bills.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

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BlackcatCA wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 9:56 am neurosphere, where did you find the daily SEC yield data? I looked at Vanguard fund page and all I can find is daily price or distribution yield for export. I want to make a graph to see if it's time to shift to limited term tax exempt.
On the pain information page for a vanguard fund you can click on the 'price and performance' tab, then under the "Price" heading use the Price History Search Link. You can get one year of price and yield data at a time. I then cut/paste the resuts into excel to graph.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by am »

Tax equivalent yield at 32% bracket for Vang muni mm is 2.36% for my state. Still can’t beat that with any money markets or savings am aware of. I’ll stay the course with the muni mm. We’re talking trivial amounts in dollar difference.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by welderwannabe »

The national fund is at 2.36% TEY right now as well, assuming the highest bracket plus net investment tax.

Even at the 24% bracket, assuming you are at the upper end and paying the net investment tax is a TEY of 1.94%.

I will continue to monitor the yield, but it will have to drop a lot more before I start to move money out.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by gmaynardkrebs »

Has anyone offered a theory about why the muni mm rates have risen so much? Is it entirely the new tax law, or is something else going on?
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by neurosphere »

am wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 1:04 pm Tax equivalent yield at 32% bracket for Vang muni mm is 2.36% for my state. Still can’t beat that with any money markets or savings am aware of. I’ll stay the course with the muni mm. We’re talking trivial amounts in dollar difference.
Here's an updated chart of various bond funds. Lines represent the NY muni money market, Prime MM, Limited Term Tax Exempt bond fund, Short Term Tax Exempt fund, and the NY Long Term Tax Exempt bond fund.

The National Municipal Money Market tracks the NY Muni fund within 1-3 basis points.

Image
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by am »

neurosphere wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 1:41 pm
am wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 1:04 pm Tax equivalent yield at 32% bracket for Vang muni mm is 2.36% for my state. Still can’t beat that with any money markets or savings am aware of. I’ll stay the course with the muni mm. We’re talking trivial amounts in dollar difference.
Here's an updated chart of various bond funds. Lines represent the NY muni money market, Prime MM, Limited Term Tax Exempt bond fund, Short Term Tax Exempt fund, and the NY Long Term Tax Exempt bond fund.

The National Municipal Money Market tracks the NY Muni fund within 1-3 basis points.

Image
Why do you think the mm dips at the end while all other municipal debt rises?
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

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am wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 2:40 pm Why do you think the mm dips at the end while all other municipal debt rises?
I'm certainly no bond expert, but I assume that shorter term funds respond more quickly to changes in the interest-rate world, and are a leading indicator of sorts, for very short term changes. You can see this on the graph, that the sways in the MM funds are soon after followed by similar trends in the longer term funds.
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Re: Muni Money Market funds starting to look good!

Post by gmaynardkrebs »

am wrote: Sat May 12, 2018 2:40 pm Why do you think the mm dips at the end while all other municipal debt rises?
Word got out. It seems like an anomaly.
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