This view was supported by a district court in New York the bonds were mostly issued under New York law--and then upheld by an appeals courts.
These exchange-traded funds own bonds from abroad, mostly those issued by governments.
The banks surveyed are mostly buying bonds issued by the government of the country they are based in, analysts say.
Because the Fed mostly holds debt issued by the federal government, its profits — which totaled $91 billion in 2012 — are largely payments from the government.
Bank of America has already announced that it expects another $5 billion charge for earnings, and American International Group said this week that it would sue Bank of America for $10 billion, mostly for loans issued by Countrywide.
Brenda Wenning, who runs Wenning Investments in Boston, advises sticking mostly to securities issued by state governments with strong economies.
With only four companies licensed to list on the exchange, initial trading is expected to be light and will mostly be in bonds issued by the government and state-owned banks.
The aim is to persuade the Chinese government to increase the approximately one-quarter of its foreign exchange reserves that are thought to be held now in euros, mostly in government bonds issued by the financially strongest countries in Europe — and to get Beijing to diversify that lending by buying the bonds of other, more troubled nations in the euro currency union.
Lehman structured many of the instruments and provided a sophisticated guarantee through a swap, which is why they were dragged into the firm's bankruptcy, but the underlying assets were mostly collateralised-debt obligations issued by others.On the surface the settlement sounds pretty good.
Like Mr. Lipsman, Mr. Landi said that his capacity for enforcing environmental laws had always been limited, since he mostly relied on summonses issued by Health Department inspectors and one enforcement officer from his department who was not empowered to arrest violators.
