MUNICIPAL BOND ARBITRAGE

A tax arbitrage that comprises of creating a portfolio of tax-exempt municipal bonds and concurrently hedging the duration risk of the portfolio via short selling of coequal taxable corporate bonds of the similar maturity, overall interest rate swaps. Because interest on municipal bonds is exempted from federal income tax, an arbitrageur can accept after-tax earning from the municipal bond portfolio which is greater than the interest paid in the interest rate swap.