Markets

Moody's said the ongoing wave of mergers sweeping the non-profit health care sector led to an uptick in upgrades during the third quarter and could reverse earlier expectations that downgrades would outpace upgrades for the full year.

The municipal market can expect another middling week of new issuance. Estimates hold that anticipated volume for the week should reach $7.64 billion.

Standard & Poor's downgraded local and state governments more than it upgraded them in the third quarter 2012, but did the opposite with public utilities.

Municipal bond mutual funds saw inflows for the 27th consecutive week. Funds that report their flows weekly recorded inflows of $621 million for the week ended Oct. 17.

As a veteran with 26 years of experience in munis, Guggenheim Partners' Jim Pass talks about investment strategy, political risk, and what he's seeing in the market.

The municipal bond market adopted a slightly weaker tone this week. Muni indexes mostly followed tax-exempt and Treasury yields higher.

Two weeks of gains among tax-exempt money market funds were washed away this week as $2.49 billion escaped and total net assets decreased to $267.42 billion in the week ended Oct. 15, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

BondDesk Group LLC gave its chairman Howard Edelstein the added role of chief executive officer today.