Investors continued to find favor with municipal bond mutual funds, following a week of strong demand and gradually falling yields.
Muni bond funds saw $447 million of inflows from funds that report their flows weekly for the week ended May 2, according to Lipper FMI.
That represented only a slight downtick in inflow numbers. The previous week, which ended April 25, there were net inflows of $459 million. The market has now seen positive flows for 32 out of the past 35 weeks.
Demand for long-term munis set the pace for the market, with 30-year triple-A yields falling six basis points since last Friday, according to Municipal Market Data numbers. Consequently, demand for long-term bond funds remained relatively strong, as it has for most of the past two months, though it’s down from the previous week. Flows for the long-term muni funds that report weekly rose $208 million.
Intermediate municipal bond funds also saw inflows following two down weeks. Funds that report their flows weekly saw inflows of $85.6 million.
Issuance is estimated to have dropped somewhat for the week, but investor demand absorbed the volume with little difficulty.
This week, assets for all funds that report their flows weekly rose to $294.5 billion from $292.9 billion the previous week.
The value of the holdings for weekly reporting funds leapt by $1.11 billion. The week before, they gained $865 million.
The four-week moving average for all municipal bond mutual funds that report their flows weekly experienced a $252 million inflow, up from a $156 million gain the week before.
High-yield muni funds continued to see inflows. They have been positive for 20 of the past 21 weeks.
Funds that report weekly saw $160.1 million in inflows, Lipper said. The previous week, high-yield funds reported $202.1 million of inflows.
Assets for high-yield funds that report their flows weekly rose to $39.1 billion, up slightly from $38.64 billion the previous week.
The value of the holdings for weekly reporting funds increased by $299 million. Last week, they rose by almost $181 million.
The four-week moving average for all high-yield muni bond funds that report their flows weekly was $151 million, up from a $129 million inflow the week before.
