Genter Capital quoted in The Wall Street Journal:
The president’s municipal-bond holdings stretch from coast to coast
April 28, 2025 7:00 am ET
President Trump has called New York a city “in decline,” Philadelphia a place where “bad things happen,” and Chicago “worse than Afghanistan.” But all three cities show up in his personal municipal-bond portfolio. And during this month’s tariff turmoil, they turned out to be decent places to invest.
Trump is a big investor in the debt of America’s state and local governments. The disclosure he submitted to the Office of Government Ethics in August lists more than 500 muni bonds with a combined value between $100 million and $330 million. (He isn’t required to disclose the exact value of each holding, only a range.)
Those investments are a fraction of the president’s total net worth, which The Wall Street Journal estimated last year at between $7.5 billion and $10 billion. But munis’ stability and tax-free income make them a must-have for most wealthy Americans. Trump’s muni portfolio spans 48 states and touches every corner of American life, helping build high schools, airports, hospitals and libraries.
“He’s a chef’s choice kind of buyer,” said Matt Fabian, a partner with Municipal Market Analytics. “He seems to believe in the asset class.”
Many of the bonds in Trump’s portfolio come from places the president would likely be well-received. About a third of his holdings are in either Florida or Texas. They are helping pay for school construction in Waco, Texas, the site of his first big re-election rally, and wastewater treatment in Phoenix, which hosted this month’s Border Security Expo.
Trump has also invested in projects further afield from his typical talking points. His disclosure lists as much as $500,000 in the bonds of an Ohio plant that produces solar, wind and hydroelectric power. His portfolio also contains as much as $50,000 in “green bonds” aimed at helping finance pollution-control and drinking-water projects.
He probably didn’t pick all the bonds himself. Like a lot of muni investors, the president appears to have a set-it-and-forget-it collection of securities, likely amassed over several years by an investment manager or a series of them, according to analysts and managers who reviewed it.
Wall Street money managers are used to seeing—and cleaning up—multimillion-dollar collections like the president’s. The $4 trillion muni market encompasses nearly 40,000 borrowers, and Florida residents like Trump don’t have to worry about buying locally to avoid state income taxes. The president has hundreds of different holdings worth less than $100,000.
“Portfolios that have been around a lot—they tend to get unwieldy,” said John Mousseau, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors.
Universities and colleges can also borrow in the muni market. But the higher-education holdings in Trump’s portfolio are mostly limited to state schools and not the elite private universities in his crosshairs. He did report holding as much as $250,000 of bonds issued by Colby College, a small Maine liberal-arts school.
Most of Trump’s portfolio is high-grade debt, the kind of munis many wealthy investors refer to as their sleep-at-night money. Such bonds are repaid with ultrareliable property taxes, sales taxes and other government revenues.
The president has taken some risks, such as buying bonds issued by a Bryan, Texas, retirement home before the pandemic when rates were low and speculative projects were common. Many senior-living bonds sold during that time have defaulted. But the Crestview Methodist Retirement Communities has been paying its debt in full.
The president’s portfolio wasn’t immune to the havoc that this month’s tariff broadside wreaked across bond markets—turmoil Trump cited in his decision to implement a 90-day pause. Some Phoenix bonds in the president’s portfolio traded last week at their lowest price in the two years since they were issued.
But muni debt weathered the storm far better than stocks. The S&P 500 lost 12% in the week after Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement, while a Bloomberg muni index lost 2%. Dan Genter, chief executive of Los Angeles-based RNC Genter, said munis likely offer the same benefit to Trump as for many of his entertainment-industry clients.
“When they turn off the mic and they turn off the lights, this money is still going to be there,” Genter said.