Markets

Moody's Investors Service calls it "the great credit shift." RBC Capital Markets calls it the new paradigm. Meredith Whitney calls it ... well, let's move on. The point is: the municipal bond market has transformed dramatically the last few years, opening doors for some and shutting doors for others.

Low interest rates have significantly colored the outlook industry veterans have for the municipal market.

Analysts and managers say they are finding value in the municipal market by taking advantage of attractive intermediate yields and buying opportunities presented by credits that find themselves in the headlines, among other strategies.

November is starting off with a relatively strong week of new issuance in the municipal market, with two deals totaling at least $1 billion each. The amount of new deals continues to climb after a strong October.

Investor confidence in tax exempts continued this past week as municipal bond mutual funds saw a third straight week of inflows, and a seventh week out of eight.

Tax-exempt money market funds continued their losing streak again this week as they posted $1.31 billion of withdrawals — a little more than half of last week’s outflows — and total net assets dropped to $286.7 billion in the week ended Oct. 24, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The Bond Buyer's weekly yield indexes outperformed Treasuries during a week that saw middling investor interest in the primary market and a dramatic sell-off in Treasuries during the latter half of the week.

A credit rating agency wants borrowers to shine more light on a practice they've been using increasingly to issue debt.

After several weeks of relatively high volume, municipal issuance isn't cooling off just yet, with $7.37 billion expected to come to market, down only slightly from last week's revised $7.71 billion.