Markets

Reality has set in for municipal closed-end funds. And reality is not so bad.

Wayne Godlin, a municipal veteran with 26 years of experience, has joined the global investment management firm AllianceBernstein LP as a member of its municipal bond portfolio management team.

In a year that has seen nearly $58 billion of Build America Bond issuance, this week might afford one of the last opportunities in 2009 for investors to buy into sizeable offerings of the taxable debt.

Each passing week confirms the “new normal” in municipal bond mutual funds.

The technicals and the fundamentals are at war.

The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined this week, as the municipal market grew slightly firmer in each of the week’s sessions.

Tax-exempt money market fund assets declined by $2.09 billion and ended with $406.15 trillion for the week ending Nov. 30, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Pacific Investment Management Co. is the latest company to jump into the municipal bond exchange-traded fund business.

Municipalities are preparing a decent slate consisting heavily of taxable bonds for sale this week following a holiday-shortened week with little activity.

For most of this year, the municipal bond market has been buttressed by cash coming out of hiding.