Markets

An atrocious three months for stocks chased retail investors to the safer perches of government bonds in the first quarter of the year, enabling state and local governments to continue borrowing.

On the heels of the minor weakness that crept into both the short and long ends of the municipal market late last week and the glut of new supply that investors digested, this week's primary market again calls for a generous slate of new issues that will continue to test buyers' appetites.

Investors continued to lavish heaps of cash on municipal bond mutual funds last week as people shrugged off the surge in Treasury yields and kept taking more risk.

Mitchell Savader’s job is to stay one step ahead of the rating agencies.

The Bond Buyer’s yield indexes climbed this week as tax-exempt yields edged higher against a large new-issue calendar and a weakening Treasury market.

The municipal bond market grew in the first quarter at a slower pace than in pre-crisis years as the industry coped with a severe recession and life without bond insurance.

Reversing the trend of the last two weeks, tax-free money market funds gained $228.3 million and settled at $465.89 billion in total assets for the week ending June 8, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

High-quality municipal bonds do not default. That has been the paradigm for several decades.

Investors continued shoveling rare quantities of cash into municipal bond mutual funds last week.

A pair of deals, one several billion dollars and one nearly a billion, will share the spotlight in the primary market this week as an estimated $11.4 billion in total new-issue volume is expected, according to The Bond Buyer and Ipreo LLC. The mammoth offerings will almost double last week's volume, which was revised to $6.6 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.