Markets

For 2013 Fitch Ratings has more negative than positive outlooks on state and tax-supported local governments.

The week's largest deals have arrived to give the municipal market a year-end feel. As expected, investors are feeding at the new-issue trough and largely ignoring the secondary.

With an eye on growing its public finance business, New York City-based broker-dealer Lebenthal & Co. LLC has hired William Ludolph to head its municipal underwriting efforts.

A quiet trading session precedes a hefty primary calendar in the municipal market Tuesday.

Investors, waiting for the coming calendar and armed with cash were expected to light up the secondary market with activity this week, but instead, traders report that all has been quiet on the buying front.

A bump in anticipated primary volume should spur the municipal market for the first week of December. But while the market gears up for the coming deals, Monday's session has started flat.

A pair of New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority offerings totaling more than $1 billion will dominate the primary market this week amid an array of other sizable offerings from Texas, Colorado, and New York.

Hurricane Sandy and a presidential election helped to pare municipal bond issuance by 20% for the month of November, breaking from the surging volume numbers that have dominated most of 2012.

After amassing more than $3 billion last week, tax-exempt money market funds stayed in postitive territory -- albeit only by $260.5 million in the week ended Nov. 26 as total net assets settled at $272.04 billion, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.