JPMorgan New York Tax Free Bond A VANTX

The portfolio maintains a cost advantage over competitors, priced within the second-lowest fee quintile among peers.

The strategy underwent an entire portfolio management team change less than a year ago, but confidence in the strategy's new leadership drives an Above Average People Pillar rating. The strategy's sensible investment philosophy earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating. The strategy's parent organization earns the firm an Above Average Parent Pillar rating, and this rating is inherited from vehicles belonging to the same branding entity and is indirectly assigned by an analyst.

JPMorgan New York Tax Free Bond Fund earns an Above Average Process Pillar rating.

The main contributor to the rating is its parent firm's excellent long-term risk-adjusted performance, as shown by the firm's average 10-year Morningstar Rating of 3.3 stars. The parent firm's five-year risk-adjusted success ratio of 54% also strengthens the process. The measure indicates the percentage of a firm's funds that survived and beat their respective category's median Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return for the period. Their impressive success ratio suggests that the firm does well for investors and that this fund may benefit from that. Lastly, the process is limited by the fund's mediocre long-term risk-adjusted performance. This can be seen in its five-year alpha calculated relative to the category index, which suggests that the process has struggled over that period.

Compared with other funds in the Muni New York Intermediate Morningstar Category, this fund takes on significantly lower credit risk. But in terms of long-term interest-rate sensitivity, it hews closely to its average peer over the past few years. Opening the analysis to additional factors, the portfolio has displayed biases over time, whether towards or away from certain fixed-income instruments. Compared with the average strategy in the category, the managers have been overweight AAA rated bonds in recent years. In the latest month, the strategy has relatively overweighted AAA rated bonds compared with its peers as well. Additionally, there's been a bias towards debt with 10- to 15-year maturities over the past few years. Compared with category peers, the strategy had more exposure to debt with 10- to 15-year maturities in the most recent month. Finally, during the past few years, the fund leaned away from corporate bonds. Nevertheless, the fund's corporate bonds exposure was in line with peers in the latest month.

This strategy's 12-month yield is 2.9%, higher than its average peer's 2.5%. In addition, it has a 3.0% 30-day SEC yield (a standardized, point-in-time estimate of the fund’s future income return). Higher yields tend to indicate higher credit risk. But that isn't always the case. Over the past 12 months, the average yield of the fund has been higher than the average yield of its Morningstar Category peers. The portfolio's average surveyed credit quality is on par with peers, with both the fund and the average being rated A.

Although this strategy was incepted on February 2001, its listed management team joined within the past three years. Therefore, the fund’s historical data is not applicable to the current team.

Note: The People Pillar rating is indirectly assigned by an analyst. At least one of the managers on this fund manages a different product rated by an analyst. The analyst-assigned People Pillar rating(s) for these managers are combined with algorithmic scores for any non-covered managers on a tenure-weighted basis.

J.P. Morgan is a well-resourced, diligent, and responsible steward of client assets. Investment teams are seasoned and stalwart, especially in equity and fixed income, the latter of which has successfully undergone substantial transformation in recent years. The firm offers competitive compensation that is aligned with fundholders and shows strong retention at senior levels of the organization. It demonstrates a culture of constant innovation and willingness to evolve. For example, J.P. Morgan recently expanded its investment committee process through which senior leaders review various teams and strategies, and it continues to develop proprietary portfolio management and risk oversight tools. Some funds still face high fee hurdles, but the firm has generally lowered expenses as it has grown.

The firm isn't without its complications. J.P. Morgan's product offering is extensive, and some areas need improvement. For instance, its multi-asset business has faced some challenges as a result of complex investment processes. The firm continues to build out its footprint in China, but its efforts there remain unproven. Although not every strategy is the best in its class, J.P. Morgan remains earnest in the pursuit of excellence, and investors are well-served.

The fund’s long-term track record is largely no longer applicable, as it is not necessarily representative of the current strategy. The new team took the reins in February 2024 and looking at their performance so far, they have posted similar results to both the category index and category average. Since the manager change five months ago, the fund returned 0.9% mirroring both its average category peer and the category benchmark, Bloomberg Barclays Municipal New York Tax-Exempt Bond Index. With this narrow of a time frame with the new team, it is difficult to meaningfully assess the fund’s risk.

This share class levies a fee that ranks in its Morningstar Category's second-cheapest quintile. Despite this fee, the fund’s People, Process, and Parent Pillars suggest this share class is probably best avoided, as it does not offer investors a good chance at producing positive alpha versus its peer benchmark, leading to its Morningstar Medalist Rating of Neutral.