Jessica Lerner is a senior reporter and buy-side specialist 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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August's volume reached $49.174 billion in 873 issues, up 25% from 2023. August's total is above the 10-year average of $40.828 billion and is also the highest monthly total this year.
August 30 -
The muni market is "well-positioned for strategic opportunities, with strong inflows driven by the current narrative and eased secondary selling pressure," said James Pruskowski, chief investment officer at 16Rock Asset Management.
August 29 -
The Investment Company Institute reported more than $1.3 billion of inflows into muni mutual funds. The last time inflows topped $1 billion, per ICI data, was for the week ending Feb. 7. LSEG Lipper has reported weeks with $1 billion plus inflows on July 31 and May 8.
August 28 -
ICE's and MarketAxess's networks are "complementary," said Peter Borstelmann, president of ICE Bonds, as the former is "deep and rich" in the retail wealth segment, while the latter is "deep and rich" in the institutional space.
August 28 -
"On the whole, the municipal market continues to provide an attractive entry point for investors," said AllianceBernstein strategists. "And with the Fed clearly communicating that a September rate cut is imminent, the future is bright for the municipal market."
August 27 -
"The forward calendar shows issuance will be above average over the next few weeks, while reinvestment cash is set to drop off," Birch Creek strategists said.
August 26 -
The purpose of restructuring is to help the Pennsylvania hospital operator "avoid a bankruptcy scenario," said Dora Lee of Belle Haven Investments.
August 26 -
Along with the influx of supply, the muni market remains "constructive" due to attractive yields, said Catherine Stienstra, head of municipal bond investments at Columbia Threadneedle Investments.
August 22 -
All eyes are on Jackson Hole and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's speech this week, noted Cooper Howard, a fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab.
August 21 -
"Investor reception will remain the ultimate arbiter of muni performance and … the current state of the tax-exempt space to be well-positioned, even though munis are likely to continue to underperform USTs," said Jeff Lipton, a research analyst and market strategist.
August 20
