Buy side

For the first time since early October, tax-exempt money market funds generated inflows for the week ending Dec. 7 as total assets rose by $2.59 billion and settled at $408.73 billion for the week ending Dec. 7, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

In raising more cash to placate the rating agencies, Assured Guaranty Ltd. also pleased bondholders.

Reality has set in for municipal closed-end funds. And reality is not so bad.

Wayne Godlin, a municipal veteran with 26 years of experience, has joined the global investment management firm AllianceBernstein LP as a member of its municipal bond portfolio management team.

In a year that has seen nearly $58 billion of Build America Bond issuance, this week might afford one of the last opportunities in 2009 for investors to buy into sizeable offerings of the taxable debt.

Each passing week confirms the “new normal” in municipal bond mutual funds.

The technicals and the fundamentals are at war.

The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined this week, as the municipal market grew slightly firmer in each of the week’s sessions.

Tax-exempt money market fund assets declined by $2.09 billion and ended with $406.15 trillion for the week ending Nov. 30, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Pacific Investment Management Co. is the latest company to jump into the municipal bond exchange-traded fund business.

Municipalities are preparing a decent slate consisting heavily of taxable bonds for sale this week following a holiday-shortened week with little activity.

For most of this year, the municipal bond market has been buttressed by cash coming out of hiding.

Nearly all The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined this week amid fairly light trading activity in the secondary market and ahead of tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Day holiday.

Investors last week handed municipal bond mutual funds the puniest slug of cash in seven months, cementing the slower trend of new money flowing to the industry.

With the Thanksgiving holiday on the menu, issuers, underwriters, and bankers have very few deals scheduled to take place during the shortened trading week.

Just because money’s on the sidelines doesn’t mean it’s out of the game.

Most of The Bond Buyer’s yield indexes declined this week, as the municipal market grew firmer over the past several sessions in the last full week of activity prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Outflows of $2 billion caused tax-exempt money market funds to decline to $409.57 billion for the week ending Nov. 16, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Investors in municipal credit need to make an important distinction between rated government bodies and unrated speculative credits, analysts from Fitch Ratings said at a conference yesterday.

Invesco Ltd. today launches an exchange-traded fund designed to track the performance of taxable Build America Bonds — a potentially transformative product that has helped galvanize public finance in 2009.