Dan Seymour

The municipal bond market will be asked to digest a single small deal this week as a welcome lull in new supply continues through the holidays.

The tax-free money market fund industry continues to shrink rapidly, squeezing what had been a major source of short-term credit for municipalities and arguably leading to higher borrowing costs for state and local governments.

Municipal credit analysts are spending more time evaluating a risk few used to give much thought to: a municipality's loss of market access for refinancing short-term debt.

Investors continued to ferry cash out of their municipal bond mutual funds at historic rates last week as a tumultuous sell-off sowed fear among buyers.

The flood of new supply that has inundated the municipal bond market the past month will die out this week as issuers take a breather from selling new debt.

A change in the methodology the Federal Reserve uses to measure who owns municipal bonds has masked the growth in foreign ownership of state and local government debt.

Municipal bond mutual funds are hemorrhaging cash at historic rates due to a fearful investor reaction to the public drubbing of state and local government debt.

The exodus of cash from municipal bond mutual funds has slowed down as the November spike in yields attracted buyers back into the market, following a few frightening weeks of outflows.

This week didn’t exactly seem like an ideal time to float a tobacco bond.

If the Build America Bond program expires at the end of this year, long-term tax-exempt bonds could lose their latest pillar of support.

A week after the biggest weekly outflow in history, municipal bond mutual funds this week reported the third-biggest.

Anyone considering buying a taxable municipal bond might want to get a quote on some municipal credit-default swaps first.

The story in the municipal bond market this month has been bleak. The story in the municipal bond exchange-traded fund ­market has been even bleaker.

Fitch Ratings expects municipal defaults to remain isolated events, according to a report the rating agency plans to release today.

Standard & Poor’s knocked almost half the tobacco bond universe down to junk on Thursday as it surmised many of these structures would not be able to withstand a severe cutback in smoking.

Retail demand for municipal bond mutual funds remained languid last week during one the toughest periods for state and local government debt this year.

Many investors think the expiration of the Build America Bond program would actually be good for existing BABs because the entire universe of taxable bond buyers will be fighting over a finite and relatively small pool of available debt.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management hired two people as part of an effort to expand the firm’s municipal strategies team.

The muni market continues to hammer away at long-term tax-free bonds as dealers wonder whether there is sufficient capacity to absorb an onslaught of new paper.

Cash flows into municipal bond mutual funds last week were at the slowest pace since early in the financial crisis.