Wednesday 12 June 2019

Learning The Ins And Outs Of Arbitrage Bonds

By Ruth Wagner


In the bond market, there are plenty that one can choose from in order to earn more passive income in the long term. One of the more uncommon but still popular types would be known as arbitrage bonds. If one is interested in investing in this sort of medium, it is important to know about it first.

As defined by most financial or wall street dictionary, this type of bond is a type of municipal bond that is offered at a lower interest rate than other municipal bonds. Now, one may think that a bond offered at a lower interest rate is not such an attractive bond, however, this will depend on the context. For this type of medium, it is usually used to pay for an earlier bond that is outstanding.

Actually, the reason as to why it is usually offered at a lower rate would be because it is simply a follow up bond when the existing offers are already finished. This is done by the municipalities who want to arbitrage the difference of this security and the existing bond that has a higher yield. With that, the municipality can take advantage of price differences between the two.

While it may seem pretty advantageous to the municipalities, it does not seem to benefit the investors that much. Well, the advantage would usually come when the existing bond plummets and has a lower rate than previously established. In that case, the new offering would then add a little more value for the investor and somehow cover up the opportunity cost that the investor had.

That is actually the main benefit of this kind of security for investors. In the event that the bond market would plummet, then this follow up security can help as a buffer to at least cover some of the loss that the investors may encounter when the bond rate would go down. Since this also raises money for more municipality projects, then the municipality would also highly benefit from it.

Another great thing about this bond is that it is tax exempt. This means that if one buys it, then there are no tax deductions in the earnings made by investors. In the long run, one can make a lot of money because of no taxes.

Of course, there is a catch to this kind of benefit. This bond will only be tax exempt if the money of the bond will go to a community level project. If the government sees that it does not contribute to a specific project, it will not be tax exempt.

Basically, those are some of the things that one should know about if he or she wants to invest in an arbitrage bond. Now, these types of bonds are actually rather attractive because they offer an extra benefit and some extra profits to the investor. At the same time, the government gets to earn the difference between higher yielding securities as well which is a win win for both parties.




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