Bond volume

With federal aid rolling out, the municipal credit picture is improving and issuers are coming to market at a faster clip. An infrastructure package could push issuance levels even higher.

The first quarter of 2021 concludes with $102.1 billion, slightly higher than the $95.3 billion that the market saw in the COVID-ravaged first quarter of 2020.

Far West municipal issuers sold $99.1 billion of debt last year, a 16% increase from 2019, picking up the pace in the second quarter after a hiccup in March when the coronavirus first put society on pause.

Far West municipal issuers sold $99.1 billion of debt last year, a 16% increase from 2019.

Municipal bond issuers in the Southeast sold $76.91 billion of bonds in 1,152 issues in 2020, putting volume slightly ahead of 2019, according to Refinitiv data.

Municipal issuers in the Southeast sold $76.9 billion of bonds in 2020; $3.5 billion for Florida's Hurricane Catastrophe Fund was the region's biggest deal.

Refunding volume swelled in the Midwest by 53% in 2020, driving bond issuance in the Midwest to a 15.8% year-over-year increase, to more than $83.5 billion.

From the use of taxables to forward deliveries, refunding deals drove an overall 15.8% hike in Midwest bond volume that exceeded the national average.

Municipal bond issuers in the Southwest, despite the pandemic — or perhaps in part because of the conditions it created — set a record for annual issuance.

Northeast municipal issuers sold $129.99 billion of debt in 2020 amid the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.