Buy side

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.

A fairly brisk new-issue calendar will usher in the last week of the November – highlighted by an $800 million Florida aviation offering – and municipal players say the deals will satisfy post-holiday demand on the heels of dwindling supply last week.

Tax-exempt money market funds were boosted by $3.68 billion of inflows – one of the single highest weekly increases of the year – as assets swelled to $271.78 billion in the week ended Nov. 19, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

A Chicago-based broker dealer has launched an electronic platform executives say will help ensure new-issue municipal bonds reach retail investors efficiently and at fair prices.

The municipal bond market will enter the Thanksgiving holiday from a position of strength. Muni bond indexes heading into the holiday fell on all but the short end to levels not seen in more than 47 years.

Moody's has told MBIA Inc. that it will consider downgrading bond-insurer National Public Finance Guarantee Corporation, parent-company MBIA Inc. and sister-company MBIA Corp.

The Thanksgiving holiday brings a light calendar this week from municipal bond issuers, at $2.25 billion, while investor demand remains considerable and yields hover at record lows.

Another strong week of inflows for municipal bond mutual funds indicated sustained heightened demand for munis. Funds that report their flows weekly recorded inflows of $706 million for the week ended Nov. 14.

Back-to-back holiday weeks combined with robust demand have kindled a strong rally in the municipal market and driven some muni bond indexes to levels they haven’t seen in more than 45 years.

An Alberta, Canada-based financial publisher seeking to streamline the investing experience for municipal bond buyers has acquired Municipalbonds.com.

Moody's Investors Service has downgraded 27 grant anticipation revenue vehicle bonds, totaling about $10 billion in par value.