Neither process nor people stand out at VanEck Short Muni ETF, but it gets enough right to help this strategy retain its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Bronze. The portfolio maintains a sizable cost advantage over competitors, priced within the least expensive fee quintile among peers.  

 The strategy gets an Average Process Pillar. Independent of the rating, analysis of the strategy's portfolio shows it has maintained an underweight position in AAA rated bonds and debt with 10- to 15-year maturities compared with category peers. The strategy’s management team earns an Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Average Parent Pillar rating. People Pillar and Parent Pillar ratings for this strategy are indirectly assigned by a Morningstar analyst rather than algorithmically derived. Please see the notes following each pillar section for more details. The details of assigning methods can be found in each pillar section.

Analyst Rating

VanEck Short Muni ETF earns an Average Process Pillar rating. Morningstar's evaluation of this security's process aims to determine the likelihood that it will outperform its Morningstar Category index on a risk-adjusted basis over the long term. The most significant contributor to the rating is that this fund tracks an index. Historical data, such as Morningstar's Active/Passive Barometer, finds that passively managed funds have generally outperformed their active counterparts, especially over longer time horizons. The firm's five-year retention rate of 83% also strengthens the process. Lastly, the process is limited by its parent firm's inferior risk-adjusted performance, as shown by the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 2.6 stars. A lower star rating suggests that the firm has struggled to outperform on a risk-adjusted basis.

The investment strategy as stated in the fund's prospectus is: 

The investment seeks to replicate as closely as possible, before fees and expenses, and the price and yield performance of the ICE Short AMT-Free Broad National Municipal Index.  The fund normally invests at least 80% of its total assets in fixed income securities that comprise the index. The index is comprised of publicly traded municipal bonds that cover the U.S. dollar denominated short-term tax-exempt bond market.  

 This strategy has a modest 1.9% 12-month yield, lower than its average peers' 2.5%. Plus, its 30-day SEC yield (a measure similar to yield-to-maturity) sits at 2.9%. A lower yield tends to indicate lower credit risk. But that isn't always the case. Over the past 12 months, the average yield of the fund has been lower than the average yield of its Morningstar Category peers. The portfolio has a lower average credit rating of BBB, compared with the category average's A and it holds no non-investment-grade assets, despite the average peers' 1%. Strategies with more credit risk may have a higher return, but they are riskier. In terms of long-term interest-rate risk, this strategy is on par with peers. The longer a strategy's duration, the more sensitive it is to shifts in interest rates. This fund, with a 2.2-year duration, is expected to gain 2.2% of its net asset value if interest rates drop by 1 percentage point, and vice versa.

Average

Process

VanEck’s tax preferred  team is comparable to peers, resulting in an Average People Pillar rating. There are two managers listed on the fund: Stephanie Wang, James Colby. Experience on the team is abundant, with 17 years of average portfolio management experience. Together, they manage a total of six strategies, with mixed prospects. The asset-weighted average Morningstar Medalist Rating across the strategies is Neutral. This means, in aggregate, they are not positioned to deliver positive alpha relative to the category median. This group has successfully retained management talent, with no departures in the past five years. 

 Note: This People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. Morningstar analysts evaluate the People Pillar for passive products at the brand level and may also differentiate by asset class. There is at least one other passive strategy at the firm that is covered by a Morningstar analyst, so the People Pillar rating of the fund is inherited from the rating that the Morningstar analyst assigned to investment vehicles under the same brand name.

People

VanEck’s ownership structure and specialization make it unique among industry peers. The firm’s founding family and namesake still have control, and its product lineup still reflects its legacy as a specialist in niche market segments. VanEck earns an Average Parent Pillar rating. 

Founded by John van Eck in 1955, the firm staked its claim in the industry by capitalizing on burgeoning markets. Starting with the opening of Western Europe to U.S.-based investors in the wake of the Marshall Plan, VanEck’s largest and most successful products provide exposure to areas of the market that are off the beaten path, such as hard assets, emerging-markets debt, and below-investment-grade-rated corporate debt.

Through its history, VanEck has taken an opportunistic approach to product development. For instance, since 2018, VanEck has launched strategies that provide exposures ranging from international REITs to companies involved in video game development. Regardless of where their reach takes them, however, VanEck builds a case that the strategy will be relevant over the long term and that its risks must be easy to understand. However, not all its products catch on, and the firm has shuttered several offerings in the last decade. 

VanEck remains a privately held firm, wholly owned by CEO Jan van Eck and his family. Although this enables the firm to focus on the long term and the firm offers some employees participation in profits, the firm hasn’t used equity as a recruiting and retention tool and introduces some key-person risk in the executive suite.

Parent

VanEck Vectors Short Muni ETF

SMB tracks a market value-weighted index of investment grade, tax-exempt US municipal bonds with nominal maturities of 1-6 years.

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