James Ramage

Municipal coffers are recovering, but many bond investors still favor revenue bonds, particularly the essential purpose variety, over their general obligation brethren.

Inflows to municipal bond mutual funds are shrinking, though they remained positive for a fifth straight week, as they recorded $109 million in inflows for the week of Feb. 6.

Municipal bond mutual funds continued to see inflows, though the numbers fell for a third straight week, to $574 million for the week of Jan. 30.

It's a new year, but talk of municipal bond issuance still revolves around the same subject: refundings. Long-term muni bond volume for January jumped 39% over the same period one year earlier.

2012 was a good year for municipal bond mutual funds, approaching the robust overall returns seen in 2011. Muni funds with long maturities that focused on high yield performed best.

In his more than 25 years on the municipal bond desk at Merrill Lynch and BlackRock, Peter Hayes has had front-row seats to some of the biggest changes in asset management, and in particular, how they've affected the municipal bond industry. He brings those to bear in his analysis for 2013.

Andrew F. Rowley, a longtime veteran in the municipal bond industry and former head of public finance at Morgan Stanley, died on Friday. He was 67.

Inflows to municipal bond mutual funds, while still robust, have fallen for a second straight week, to $871 million from funds that report their flows weekly.

Municipal bond mutual funds recorded a second consecutive week of strong flows, as funds that report their flows weekly saw $1.44 billion in inflows for the week of Jan. 16

Municipal bond mutual funds saw $43 billion in inflows in 2012, a huge increase over flow numbers from the previous two years.

More municipal bond investors have shown an affinity for actively managed muni ETFs.

Eaton Vance wants to be an industry leader in non-transparent actively managed muni exchange-traded funds.

Inflows returned to the market for municipal bond mutual funds with a vengeance, at $1.55 billion for the week ended Jan. 9.

Wells Fargo Securities bulked up its sector coverage by bringing aboard publishing analyst Randall Gerardes, specializing in energy, infrastructure and transportation.

Municipal bond volume estimates this week suggest issuers are emerging slowly from their seasonal hibernation. Potential volume is expected to total $2.74 billion, up from total sales of $11.7 million last week.

Flows to muni bond mutual funds, though still negative, recovered much of their lost ground over the previous two weeks.

The 12th-hour deal to keep the U.S. from plunging over the fiscal cliff and the yearly rollover of rates provided the impetus for municipal bond yields and indexes on the week to climb.

Long-term municipal bond volume rose modestly for the month of December, closing the door gently on a year that saw record low interest rates spur an upsurge in refundings.

Volume in the municipal bond market should climb incrementally from the holiday week, to $161.3 million, up from total sales of just $14.0 million last week.

For a second consecutive week, flows to muni bond mutual funds got hammered. Funds that report their flows weekly recorded outflows of $423 million for the week ended Dec. 26.