Buy side

December issuance sticks to form as the muni bond market should expect a hefty calendar this week, to the tune of an anticipated $11.61 billion of total volume.

After a difficult few years, municipal floating rate notes are regaining a foothold in the market.

State Housing Finance Agency delinquency rates continue to rise despite an improving housing market, Moody's reports.

Municipal bond mutual funds recorded their fifth straight week of inflows, and their 62nd week of positive flows in the past 66 weeks.

The Municipal Bond Club of New York announced its new officers for the coming year.

Many in the municipal market saw this week as the right time to dump inventory and dive into what is one of the last large calendars of the year.

Total net assets among tax-exempt money market funds saw cash generation again this week, accumulating $757.5 million, which was more than last week's inflows.

For 2013 Fitch Ratings has more negative than positive outlooks on state and tax-supported local governments.

The week's largest deals have arrived to give the municipal market a year-end feel. As expected, investors are feeding at the new-issue trough and largely ignoring the secondary.

With an eye on growing its public finance business, New York City-based broker-dealer Lebenthal & Co. LLC has hired William Ludolph to head its municipal underwriting efforts.

A quiet trading session precedes a hefty primary calendar in the municipal market Tuesday.

Investors, waiting for the coming calendar and armed with cash were expected to light up the secondary market with activity this week, but instead, traders report that all has been quiet on the buying front.

A bump in anticipated primary volume should spur the municipal market for the first week of December. But while the market gears up for the coming deals, Monday's session has started flat.

A pair of New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority offerings totaling more than $1 billion will dominate the primary market this week amid an array of other sizable offerings from Texas, Colorado, and New York.

Hurricane Sandy and a presidential election helped to pare municipal bond issuance by 20% for the month of November, breaking from the surging volume numbers that have dominated most of 2012.

After amassing more than $3 billion last week, tax-exempt money market funds stayed in postitive territory -- albeit only by $260.5 million in the week ended Nov. 26 as total net assets settled at $272.04 billion, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Investors, still high on the muni market, continue to allocate money to municipal bond mutual funds, to the tune of $545 million.

Lipper has revised its weekly municipal bond fund flows lower for the week ending Nov. 21 after an error with Goldman Sachs led the company to report higher flows.

Only seven state pension systems can lay claim to a strong 90% funded ratio while at least 21 states manage systems that fall below a "fiscally sound" threshold of 70% funded, Morningstar writes.

Charles Schwab announced Monday that it has joined with Piper Jaffray to provide clients access to Piper Jaffray's new issue municipal bonds through Schwab's BondSource® Platform.