Buy side

Tax-exempt money market funds settled at $481.47 billion in total assets after losing $2.89 billion for the week ending April 13 — two days before the official tax payment deadline on Wednesday and on the heels of a short-lived period of inflows last week, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

To understand why Josh Gonze likes local school district debt in California, one has to blow the dust off the state’s constitution, which was ratified in 1879.

The Moody's Investors Service downgrades of Ambac Assurance Corp. and Berkshire Hathaway Assurance Corp. this month highlight the new paradigm for insured municipal bond funds. They are now not all that different from plain muni funds.

After 25 years in the municipal bond industry, senior portfolio manager Ronald H. Fielding — one of the longest-serving investors in the industry and a pioneer investing in tobacco bonds — has announced that he will retire from OppenheimerFunds Inc. effective May 20.

Thornburg Investment Management this month launched a high-yield municipal bond fund seeking to take advantage of distressed prices on what the company claims are fairly stable credits.

The new-issue calendar will be somewhat lackluster this week with an estimated $3.75 billion of competitive and negotiated volume expected to arrive, compared with last week when issuers priced a revised $2.79 billion ahead of the Passover and Easter holidays, according to Thomson Reuters.

Municipal bond mutual funds kept attracting cash last week as investors continued to embrace state and local government debt.

After nearly a month of consistent outflows, tax-exempt money market funds managed to gain $1.79 billion and settle at $484.36 billion in total assets for the week ending April 6, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Participants in the municipal bond market say they are seeing more investors buy bonds from other states despite the tax exposure as fatter yields outweigh in-state tax considerations.

SAN FRANCISCO - Moody's Investors Service assigned a negative outlook to the entire tax-backed local government sector yesterday. It is the first time the agency has ever had a negative outlook on the sector.

Management fees for many municipal bond mutual funds have jumped this year because of the drainage of fund assets at the end of last year.

A slate of new offerings - anchored by a pair of deals from New York and California issuers - is expected in the municipal market this week. While the total is considerable, the size of the deals will be in stark contrast to the multibillion dollar issues the market digested over the past two weeks.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association will no longer recommend early closes on trading days before most holidays to allow more continuous access to trading liquidity.

Cash influxes into municipal bond mutual funds persisted last week - albeit at a slower pace - as state and local government debt continued to gain traction among retail investors.

Nearly all of The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined this week, as tax-exempt bonds firmed up in nearly all sessions and new-issue supply lightened substantially from last week’s deluge.

Death and disease know no recession. Hospitals do.

Outflows of $1.87 billion for the week ending March 30 caused tax-exempt money market funds to start the second quarter with $482.57 billion in total assets, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

WASHINGTON - Continuing care retirement communities face more rating downgrades than upgrades in 2009 because of limited access to capital, slower unit re-occupancy caused by falling real estate values, and significantly reduced liquidity due to losses on investments, Fitch Ratings said yesterday.

The composition of municipal bonds coming to market is making it harder for some investors to diversify their portfolios.

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department extended its $3 trillion temporary guarantee program for money market mutual funds through Sept. 19 to provide continued reassurance for investors.