Buy side

Nearly all The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes rose this week, reflecting sustained weakness in the municipal market, despite the one-year note index declining to an all-time low.

After a short-lived period of inflows, tax-free money market funds declined by $124.8 million for the week ending May 25, and settled at $469.02 billion in total assets — after two prior weeks of positive cash-flow activity, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com of Westborough, Mass.

The "newness" premium on Build America Bonds has thinned.

Cash continued pouring into municipal bond mutual funds at a record pace last week as investors once again ferried money out of safe havens and put it to work elsewhere.

There will be a small array of new issues in the primary market this week - including a pair of sizable New York deals and a pair of taxable Build America Bond sales.

Most of The Bond Buyer’s yield indexes declined this week, as municipals showed firmness in nearly all the week’s sessions.

Dr. Andrew Kalotay, a man not easily baffled, is baffled by the municipal bond industry.

For a second week in a row, the assets of tax-exempt money market funds increased, gaining $479.9 million to $469.14 billion for the week ending May 18, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Armed with an East Coast operation after its acquisition of Wachovia Corp., Wells Fargo & Co.’s wealth management division says it plans to use an integrated distribution model nationally to increase assets under management and market share.

Ipreo and Morningstar Inc. are partnering to supply Morningstar's fund ownership data to users of Ipreo's Bigdough contact database, the companies said earlier this week.

Earlier this month, the New York Times op-ed page featured, side by side, two very smart people presenting very different arguments.

As the spring reinvestment season gets underway, investors expecting June 1 coupon and maturity payments will have no shortage of supply this week.

Cash is flooding into municipal bond mutual funds at a record pace as investors become more comfortable taking risk and spiriting money out of safe havens.

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts presented awards to four individuals, including Tom Weyl from Eaton Vance Management and J. Ben Watkins 3d, Florida's bond division director, as well as a law firm, during its annual conference in Seattle earlier this month.

Tax-exempt money market funds took a step into positive territory for the week ending May 11 as they gained $742.9 million to settle at $468.67 billion, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

With Build America Bonds at the forefront of the municipal market, Fitch Ratings is concentrating on the treatment of the federal subsidy and bond structure as two key credit considerations in its ongoing analysis of the taxable debt, according to a report being released today.

Nearly all The Bond Buyer’s yield indexes declined this week, as tax-exempts were unchanged to firmer in all the week’s sessions.

Municipal bond mutual funds attracted another giant slug of cash from investors last week as the industry remained a magnet for retail investor interest.

Investors hungry for more taxable Build America Bonds will have another crack at a relatively sizable offering this week when the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority issues up to $500 million of senior-priority revenue bonds amid an estimated slate of $5.6 billion of total new-issue volume, according to Ipreo LLC and The Bond Buyer.

The municipal market perked up this week, leaving The Bond Buyer’s yield indexes mostly lower. This comes after a period of lackluster trading that had settled in after a mid-April rally.