Jessica Lerner is a senior markets reporter for Bond Buyer where she writes the daily market column, the monthly volume story and longer trend stories. Prior to this, she worked as a beat reporter at two Connecticut newspapers. She earned her master's in business and economics reporting from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and her bachelor's in journalism and statistics from the University of Connecticut.
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Muni mutual funds saw outflows after 23 weeks of inflows as LSEG Lipper reported investors pulled $316.2 million for the week ending Dec. 11. High-yield municipal bond funds, though, saw inflows of $192.3 million.
December 12 -
Most on the Street expect issuance to come in around $500 billion, but a few think volume will be much higher, primarily because of potential changes to the tax exemption. Most firms expect refunding volumes to also grow in 2025.
December 12 -
Municipal investors are more focused on the final new-issues coming down the pike and repositioning books as 2024 heads to a close. ICI reported another week of inflows into municipal bond mutual funds.
December 11 -
"With strong demand, rate cuts and favorable technicals, the muni market — outside of an unexpected shock — is set up to perform well over the next couple of months," said Daryl Clements, a municipal portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein.
December 10 -
High-yield municipal bond funds saw inflows of $534.1 million compared to $300.6 million compared the previous week, per LSEG Lipper data.
December 5 -
"This matter is now under active investigation by federal authorities and impacted financial institutions, who are coordinating with the White Lake Township Police Department," said Daniel Keller, chief of police, in a statement.
December 5 -
Technicals could "break down" if there is a potential decline in risk assets or rising unemployment, particularly in white-collar jobs, said Jeff Timlin, a managing partner at Sage Advisory.
December 4 -
Muni investors hope "any move toward higher yields is steady, even dignified, such that it doesn't catalyze an outflow cycle that would countervail year-to-date total returns just before we close out the year," said Vikram Rai, head of municipal strategy at Wells Fargo.
December 3 -
Munis ended November in the black with the asset class seeing gains of 1.73% for the month, pushing year-to-date returns to 2.55%.
December 2 -
November's total is below the 10-year average of $32.278 billion and is the lowest monthly total this year. The year's total is about $25 billion short of $500 billion.
November 27
