Market Post: Munis Slow But Trade Higher in Secondary

The tax-exempt market started to slow Friday late morning as traders prepared for the weekend.

Still, one trader noted that deals priced earlier in the week were starting to trade higher in the secondary.

"New deals are breaking higher," a New York trader said. 'But it's kind of quiet now."

On Thursday, the Municipal Market Data scale was mixed with yields rising in the belly of the curve and falling on the long-end. The two-year yield finished flat at 0.30% for the 12th consecutive trading session while the 10-year yield closed steady at 1.70% for the third session. The 30-year yield fell one basis point to 2.86%.

In economic news, the September producer price index rose 1.1% while the core rate was unchanged year-over-year PPI grew 2.1%.

"Headline inflation is turning up on pressure from energy and other commodity prices," wrote economists at RDQ Economics. "Import prices for September posted their second consecutive 1.1% increase and now finished goods PPI also put in a gain of 1.1% in September having risen 1.7% in August. The Fed's policy reaction function appears to have become more tolerant of inflation risk and, going forward, we expect inflation to creep higher."

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