Credit Discovery Assistance

Many investors are no longer satisfied with only knowing the rating or guarantor of a bond.  With the turmoil affecting credit markets they seek additional information with which to evaluate the creditworthiness of investments.

First Trust offers a solution for municipal bond issues through our Credit Discovery Assistance service. We maintain a proprietary database with detailed demographic, economic and financial information on municipalities. This database is integrated within an interactive geo-coded platform that allows us to analyze this information for a more in-depth view of credit risk. We look beyond the rating of a security to offer a greater level of information for investors.

We offer Credit Discovery Assistance for:

• Trade recommendations that we execute
• Trade analysis when our clients wish to buy bonds from other broker-dealers
• Analysis of your existing holdings
• Comparisons of individual issues against similar bonds
• Portfolio management within our Fixed Income Portfolio Services offering

In each instance, Credit Discovery Assistance provides a deeper level of information about the issuer and a municipal bond so that the investor has a detailed picture of the credit strength backing the security.  With a comprehensive database of municipal issuers we believe we are able to offer a wider coverage of outstanding municipal bonds than traditional municipal credit analysis.