Bond volume

In a Bond Buyer survey, 57% of participants believe issuance will be less than $475 billion. Additionally, 47% said ESG would have the greatest impact on the public finance industry in 2022.

February volume was $26.481 billion in 594 deals versus $37.052 billion in 981 issues a year earlier, bringing total volume for the first two months of the year to $51.426 billion, or 20% less than 2021.

Municipal bond issuance in the region was down 11.7% year-over-year in 2021, as new money, refunding, taxable and tax-exempt volume all slipped.

Issuers in California sold more than $86 billion of municipal bonds in 2021.

Overall volume in the Southeast rose 1.8% last year even as taxable issuance plunged and refunding deals shriveled up.

Municipal bond issuance in the Midwest reversed course last year, falling by 7.4% to $77.5 billion.

Municipal bond issuers in the Southwest sold $90.8 billion of debt in 2021, down 3.2% from 2020 as lost refunding volume outpaced a gain in new-money sales.

Market volatility has led to munis seeing the worst performance to start the year since 2018 and the biggest monthly losses since March 2020.

January issuance declined by 14.7% year-over-year amid a rising-rate and volatile environment.

John Hallacy of John Hallacy Consulting LLC sits down with Chip Barnett to talk about what the municipal bond market will face in 2022. He discusses inflation, new issuance volume, and the future of infrastructure this year amid the lingering effects of COVID and Omicron. (19 minutes)