Markets

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds in the final reporting week of 2024, but high-yield reverted to inflows to close out the year, adding to the sector's outperformance overall.

Westchester County, New York, plans to issue roughly $189 million in general obligation bonds, with Fitch Ratings giving the debt its top rating of AAA.

Enviva's bankruptcy is the latest Chapter 11 bankruptcy where green private activity bonds are restructured to near zero.

While municipals have outperformed USTs on the whole in 2024, they will close December with losses. How taxables perform in early 2025 coupled with macroeconomic and Washington policy uncertainty have municipal market participants on edge for what lies ahead.

The muni market saw $507.585 billion of debt issued in 2024, up 31.8% from $385.061 in 2023. This surpasses the previous record of $484.601 billion in 2020 by more than $20 billion, per LSEG data.

Both IG and HY indices will likely end this year richer versus USTs and their benchmarks, "leaving very little cushion to absorb rate volatility," said Barclays strategist Mikhail Foux.

"It's an unfortunate part of doing business," said an investor.

San Francisco's "tepid" recovery from the pandemic was cited by Fitch.

While Friday's muni session was muted, the damage of a volatile UST market, paired with low new-issue supply and year-end positioning, has weighed on the asset class in December.

High-yield funds saw outflows of $413.6 million compared to the previous week's outflows of $71 million.