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    Municipal bonds

    Municipal bonds

    Our municipal bond strategies seek to deliver a relatively high level of income and excess total return from actively managing portfolios of tax-exempt and taxable municipal bonds.

    The senior members of Insight’s municipal investment team have over 25 years’ experience, on average, and have worked together for close to two decades. In addition, the trading team has an average of 20 years’ of experience in trading municipal bonds. This combined experience helps the team to understand the market, recognize risks and opportunities, and trade effectively in this inefficient market.

    Click here for information on the BNY Mellon AMT-Free Municipal Bond Fund.

    Click here for the Insight North America Customer Relationship Summary.

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      High quality debt

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      Attractive yields

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      General Obligation and Revenue bonds

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      Diversification benefits

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      Exploiting high quality opportunities

    • Municipal bonds are issued by state and local governments and nonprofit entities to fund public infrastructure initiatives, such as water systems, power utilities and mass transit. Debt service is usually funded from taxes or revenues generated from infrastructure projects, providing a reliable source of income. 

      The strong credit quality of state and local government issuers means that municipal bonds have experienced significantly lower default rates1 and higher recovery rates than global corporate bonds2.

    • Tax-exempt municipal bonds can be an attractive tax-efficient investment vehicle for US individual and corporate investors as the coupon interest income paid by these bonds is exempt from federal, and in many cases, state income taxes. Taxable municipal bonds, a smaller but rapidly growing sub-set of the overall municipal bond market, provide income and yields which are often greater than similarly rated corporate bonds in the US and globally. Given inefficiencies in market pricing, this at times opens up potential relative value opportunities across the two markets.

    • General Obligation (GO) bonds’ debt service repayment is supported by a municipality’s full faith and creditworthiness including the ability to levy taxes. Revenue bonds’ debt service can be backed by income streams from specific projects, such as toll roads.

      We prefer Revenue bonds due to their essential service nature, monopolistic service areas, strong credit fundamentals and attractive yields. However, we invest in select GO bonds if they are fundamentally sound, possess strong liquidity characteristics and the issuer is devoid of pension obligation challenges.

    • Tax-exempt and taxable municipal bonds have demonstrated a lower correlation to a variety of US and global bond sectors and a negative correlation to equities.3

    • The municipal bond market is highly fragmented with thousands of state and local government issuers. This issuer fragmentation, combined with a buyer base dominated by retail investors, may cause swings in pricing during periods of volatility. Our disciplined active management style, combined with a strong culture of risk management, takes advantage of these periods of volatility and seeks to provide our clients with attractive levels of income and excess total return.

    Our municipal bond strategies

    Meet some of the team

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    Daniel Rabasco, CFA

    Head of Municipal Bonds

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    Daniel Rabasco, CFA

    Head of Municipal Bonds

    Dan joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has worked in the investment industry since 1987. Dan is the head of municipal bonds, overseeing and guiding the investment management process for the firm’s tax-exempt strategies. Previously, he was the chief investment officer for tax-exempt bond and prior to that position, Dan was the head of trading for tax-exempt bonds, responsible for managing the municipal bond trading desk. Before joining Mellon Investments, Dan directed the municipal bond group at Fleet where he was responsible for managing mutual fund, common trust fund and high net worth client assets.

    Previously, he was a portfolio manager at Evergreen Investments, where he managed national and state-specific mutual funds. His other responsibilities included hospital and high yield credit analysis. Dan began his career as a municipal analyst at Liberty Insurance Company.

    He holds a BA from Boston College and an MBA from Suffolk University. Dan has served as a member of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's Investor Advisory Group (2004-2008). He is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the CFA Institute.

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    Jeffrey Burger, CFA

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Municipal Bonds

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    Jeffrey Burger, CFA

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Municipal Bonds

    Jeffrey joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has been in the investment industry since 1998 and joined Mellon Investments in 2009 as a senior analyst specializing in land-secured and special tax bonds. He is now a senior portfolio manager for US municipal bond strategies. He is responsible for managing US municipal bond strategies for institutional, high net worth and mutual fund clients.

    Previously, Jeffrey worked at Columbia Management as a portfolio manager and senior research analyst and at Fitch Ratings as a senior-level analyst. Jeff was elected to the Society of Municipal Analysts in 2019 and is a former chairman and member of the executive committee and board of governors for the National Federation of Municipal Analysts. He is also a former president of the Boston Municipal Analysts Forum.

    Jeffrey earned an MPA from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and a BA degree, cum laude, in policy studies and public relations from Syracuse University. He is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the CFA Institute.

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    Thomas Casey

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Municipal Bonds

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    Thomas Casey

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Municipal Bonds

    Tom joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has been in the investment industry since 1988 and joined Mellon Investments in 1993 as a trader and portfolio analyst on the US Municipal Team. He is now a senior portfolio manager for US municipal bond strategies responsible for managing US Municipal Bond portfolios for institutional, insurance and high net worth clients. Tom worked as an analyst at State Street Bank & Trust Company before joining Mellon Investments. He earned an MBA and a BA from Boston College.

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    Daniel Marques, CFA

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Municipal Bonds

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    Daniel Marques, CFA

    Senior Portfolio Manager, Municipal Bonds

    Dan joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has been in the investment industry since 1992 and joined Mellon Investments in 2000. He is a senior portfolio manager for US municipal bond strategies. He is responsible for managing US Municipal Bond portfolios for institutional, high net worth and mutual fund clients. Dan is also a leader of sustainability and ESG integration for US Municipal Bond portfolios and a lead portfolio manager for the US Municipal ESG strategy. He also provides municipal market analysis and performance attribution commentary for the team.

    Dan served as an investment research manager at Citizens Bank before joining Mellon Investments. He earned an MBA from Nichols College and a BS from the University of Massachusetts. He is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the CFA Institute.

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    Daniel Barton, CFA

    Head of Research, Municipal Bonds

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    Daniel Barton, CFA

    Head of Research, Municipal Bonds

    Dan joined Insight in September 2021 following the transition of Mellon Investments’ fixed income strategies to Insight. He has worked in the investment industry since 2000. Dan is the head of research for tax-exempt bonds. In addition to his research responsibilities covering utilities, project finance, tobacco securitization, charter schools and corporate backed bonds, Dan co-manages several state-specific and credit-specific tax-exempt bond portfolios.

    Prior to joining Mellon Investments, Dan was a municipal credit analyst at Columbia Management Group. Previously, he was a chemical engineer with Stone & Webster. Dan earned a BS in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA from Bentley College. He is a CFA charterholder and is a member of the CFA Society Boston. Dan served as the President of the Boston Municipal Analyst Forum in 2020 and is currently on the Board of the National Federation of Municipal Analysts.

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