Buy side

Issuers in the Midwest and Northeast are expected to serve up a meaty $11.27 billion of post-holiday fare in the municipal market this week, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer, as they hope to take advantage of last week’s firmness following recent supply and pricing ­volatility.

If the Build America Bond program expires at the end of this year, long-term tax-exempt bonds could lose their latest pillar of support.

A week after the biggest weekly outflow in history, municipal bond mutual funds this week reported the third-biggest.

After two steady weeks of inflows, tax-exempt money market funds fell a modest $158.5 million to $327.33 billion in total net assets for the week ending Nov. 22, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Nearly all The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes for long-term bonds declined during this holiday-shortened week, bouncing back from a significant sell-off that permeated the market since the start of the month.

Skittish investors withdrew a stunning $3.107 billion from municipal bond mutual funds in the week ending Nov. 17 — the single worst week of outflows and the largest departure of cash in 10 years, according to weekly fund flow data from Lipper FMI.

The municipal market is expected to catch its collective breath this week as new volume tapers off by about $2.5 billion from the $7.25 billion that smothered the market last week, sparking a sell-off that sent benchmark yields to 15-month highs and caused the cancellation of a handful of deals, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer.

Anyone considering buying a taxable municipal bond might want to get a quote on some municipal credit-default swaps first.

The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes increased dramatically this week amid a supply-driven rout that persisted through Wednesday and prompted a number of issuers to postpone pricing.

Modest gains continued to boost tax-exempt money market funds for a second week in a row, as $403.7 million arrived during the week ending Nov. 15 to push total net assets to $327.49 billion, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The story in the municipal bond market this month has been bleak. The story in the municipal bond exchange-traded fund ­market has been even bleaker.

Fitch Ratings expects municipal defaults to remain isolated events, according to a report the rating agency plans to release today.

Standard & Poor’s knocked almost half the tobacco bond universe down to junk on Thursday as it surmised many of these structures would not be able to withstand a severe cutback in smoking.

Cash-strapped California is poised to dominate the municipal arena this week with two separate offerings that account for 85% of the estimated $14.11 billion in new volume expected in the long-term market, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer.

Retail demand for municipal bond mutual funds remained languid last week during one the toughest periods for state and local government debt this year.

Many investors think the expiration of the Build America Bond program would actually be good for existing BABs because the entire universe of taxable bond buyers will be fighting over a finite and relatively small pool of available debt.

Nearly all The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes increased considerably throughout this holiday-shortened week as supply pressure weighed heavily on long-term munis.

Tax-exempt money market funds posted only modest gains this week, increasing by $718.2 million and ending with $327.09 billion in total net assets, but that halted a month-long streak of outflows in the week ending Nov. 8, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management hired two people as part of an effort to expand the firm’s municipal strategies team.

State and local governments generally will be able to take steps to address the economic turbulence they face without filing for bankruptcy or defaulting on their debt, Standard & Poor's said in a pair of reports released Monday.