Buy side

Toll-road bond investors can stop panicking over high gasoline prices.

The flow of cash into municipal bond mutual funds slowed down another notch last week.

There will be several significantly sized offerings this week, including a pair of $2 billion financings — one in California and the other in Florida — that will join other large deals in the primary market.

Joseph Darcy’s first task upon becoming manager of the Hartford High-Yield Municipal Bond Fund this year: resisting temptation.

The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes were somewhat mixed this week, with yields little changed after a new-issue driven week.

Outflows from money market funds reached epic proportions as the combined assets of 1,664 funds suffered their third-largest ever one-week decline, plummeting $75.63 billion to $2.99 trillion for the week ending March 16, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The unwinding of the Federal Reserve's liquidity programs is unlikely to boost the sickly yields on tax-free money market funds, participants say.

Charles Schwab Corp. has partnered with Pacific Investment Management Co. to offer wealthy clients in or approaching retirement a managed municipal bond laddering product.

Is the river of cash flooding municipal bond mutual funds slowing down? It ­depends how one interprets the ­numbers.

A $900 million New York City general obligation offering will thunder into the primary market as part of an estimated $5.62 billion of new long-term volume expected to be priced this week, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer.

State and local governments amassed their biggest-ever debt burden during the fourth quarter, meeting demand from retail buyers and a broadened investor base driven by federal stimulus programs.

Most of The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined slightly this week, as some firmness continued to permeate a mostly unchanged municipal market.

Continuing the recent outflow activity, tax-exempt money market funds lost $2.55 billion and finished with $377.04 billion for the week ending March 8, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

A debate is brewing in the municipal bond exchange-traded fund industry.

Investors continue to stuff municipal bond mutual funds with cash, supporting bond prices even as by some measures they are nearly as expensive as they have ever been.

For banks that built up significant portfolios in the municipal interest rate swap business, it may be time to consider what to do when the customer isn’t always right.

After a one-week postponement due to stalled legislation, California will make its way to market with a $2 billion sale of various-purpose general obligation bonds.

State and local governments are getting very little help from earnings on their investments at the precise time they need it most.

The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined this week, as the tax-exempt market firmed slightly in each of the week’s sessions.

After a rare week of inflows, tax-exempt money market funds returned to negative territory in the week ending March 1, losing $2.15 billion and settling at $379.60 billion in total assets, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.