Jessica Lerner

"The market seems to be coalescing around the view that these historically rich ratios can be sustained through February, but that the market technical becomes far less favorable in March and April," said Birch Creek Capital strategists in a report.

The inflows into muni mutual funds mark a reversal from 2022 and 2023.

Despite fixed-income seeing losses this month, Jeff Lipton, managing director of credit research at Oppenheimer, believes "a performance sea change is nearing."

After the year-end rally, "2024 bond investors have been reluctant buyers, prices creeping lower perhaps until the data and the Fed's next steps are more clear," said Matt Fabian, partner at Municipal Market Analytics.

This week's heavy new-issue calendar of tax-exempt supply "could lead to a modest cheapening of ratios," said Vikram Rai, head of municipal markets strategy at Wells Fargo.

The top bond counsel in 2023 handled a combined $361.721 billion across 7,164 bond issues versus $359.189 billion in 7,882 transactions in 2022. 

Growing new-issue supply is "adding to bidders' 'wait-and-see' mentality with a variety of credits coming to market at favorable spreads," said FHN Financial's Kim Olsan. Next week's calendar hits $8.4 billion.

Muni yields rose up to eight basis points, depending on the scale, while UST yields rose up to six basis points at 30 years.

Jennifer Fredericks, a sales director at market data platform SOLVE, will lead Women in Public Finance's board of directors in 2024.

The Investment Company Institute Wednesday reported large inflows into municipal bond mutual funds, with investors adding $2.066 billion to funds, while exchange-traded funds saw $1.082 billion of outflows for the week ending Jan. 10.

Munis have "struggled to get out of starting gate" to start 2024 as munis are returning negative 0.24% so far this year, said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

The tax-exempt market could also see pressure due to "heavy issuance, anemic flows, and rate volatility," according to Barclays PLC.

The top two municipal bond insurers wrapped $31.845 billion in 2023, up 10.4% from the $28.847 billion of deals in 2022, according to Refinitiv data.

The December consumer price index came in slightly stronger than expected, perhaps eliminating the possibility of a rate cut in March, analysts said.

There were several ways Adaje could integrate ficc.ai's offerings into its system, the most impactful would be tender offering analyses, said Dan Silva, Adaje CEO.

The one-year was cut up to eight basis points, depending on the scale.

The offered curve is "still deeply overbought" at all maturities outside of one year, which is "a signal for issuers and sellers to become aggressive," said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics.

Since November, 10-year munis have fallen 130 basis points, according to Refinitiv MMD. This has pushed ratios to near-record lows, said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

Caine Mitter & Associates and RBC Capital Markets moved into the top 10, while Piper Sandler & Co. and Kaufman Hall & Associates were bumped to the top 15.

Half of the top 10 issuers were new entrants: the California Community Choice Finance Authority, Main Street Natural Gas, the state of Washington, the Texas Natural Gas Securitization Finance Corp. and Illinois.