Markets

Fidelity Investments, Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group manage wealth for the largest percentage of U.S. millionaires, according to a survey by Fidelity.

The Reserve Primary Fund broke the buck in September, but despite fears to the contrary, it has not broken the back of the money market fund industry. Click here to read the American Banker article.

The rush of state and local governments into the taxable bond market has prompted reports of significant savings. Just how much savings is a contentious - and complicated - question.

A trio of sizable financings from issuers in California, as well as a large Georgia offering, will be the largest deals to usher in the first full trading week of May as the primary market anticipates an estimated $5.46 billion in total new issuance this week, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer. The issuance comes on the heels of a revised total of $3.62 billion last week, according to Thomson Reuters.

Investors handed over another fat slug of cash to municipal bond mutual funds last week as money continued to flood out of safe havens and into higher-yielding assets.

With outflows totaling $5.94 billion, tax-exempt money market funds settled at $468.57 billion in total assets for the week ending April 27, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Reports that the municipal bond market found its savior may have been premature.

For the past seven years, Peter Demirali has urged clients to put money into taxable municipal bonds — a small, neglected sector of the industry.

By the end of 2007, investors recognized the relationship between municipal bond yields and Treasury yields did not mean what it used to.Click to see larger version of chart.Now, some investors have taken it a step further. Some ignore the relationship altogether.

Investors poured the most money into municipal bond mutual funds in years last week amid a powerful rally in the tax-exempt market.