Buy side

Pacific Investment Management Co. has unfrozen all but one of the eight dividends on municipal bond mutual funds it was forced to postpone last month.

A rally in the municipal bond market to close out 2008 enabled Pacific Investment Management Co. last week to pay a previously postponed dividend on a closed-end muni fund.

With the wreckage of 2008 in the rearview mirror, issuers will start boosting the supply of muni debt this week as investors continue their flight to quality.

Nearly all The Bond Buyer's weekly yield indexes declined again during the past week as a year-end rally continued to push up prices for municipal bonds, particularly high-quality debt.

The Bond Buyer's weekly yield indexes declined last week, as tax-exempts firmed in each of the abbreviated week's sessions in advance of the Christmas holiday.

Weekly reporting municipal bond mutual funds had a net outflow of $993 million during the period ending Dec. 17, AMG Data Services reported.

With the Christmas holiday arriving later this week, a year-end lull has settled over the muni market that is likely to last at least until the second week of January as the market puts what has become one of the most eventful and tumultuous years behind it.

As 2008 begins to wind down, holiday-minded investors withdrew $2.94 billion from tax-free money market funds for the week ending Dec. 15, according to the Money Fund, a service of iMoneyNet.com of Westborough, Mass.

After several weeks of continuously rising yields, the municipal market rebounded in a dramatic way this week, as nearly all The Bond Buyer's weekly yield indexes showed sizeable declines.

Top executives at Vanguard Group expect robust growth in 2009 from its target-date and exchange-traded funds, but in this economy analysts are skeptical.

Yeshiva University's tax-exempt bonds have been hammered this week as the private, nonprofit university acknowledged potential losses in an investment scheme and a shrinking endowment.

Most executives wouldn't consider themselves "fortunate" if they took over one of the largest fund companies weeks before an historic market collapse.

Advisors Asset Management Inc. hopes to reshape the landscape for municipal bond unit investment trusts with a series of bigger, lower-cost UITs.

Growth in the municipal bond market slowed in the third quarter as financial market turmoil increased, issuers sold less debt, and retail investors pared down their holdings.

In the last full trading week before the municipal market slows for its usual holiday pause, uncertainty continues due to the status of Illinois' $1.4 billion general obligation certificates sale - with few other new deals on tap to fill the void amid overall market weakness and volatility.

The forced selling plaguing municipal bonds has distorted some segments of the market into bizarre contortions.

Clients withdrew cash from municipal bond mutual funds last week at a clip not seen since October.

Nearly all The Bond Buyer's weekly yield indexes rose again this week, as tax-exempt yields continued to rise in all the week's sessions.

The assets of tax-exempt money market funds inched up by $1.34 billion for the week ending Dec. 8, causing total assets to grow slightly to $494.92 billion for the period, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneynet.com of Westborough, Mass.

With the end of 2008 just a few weeks away and 30-day visible supply hovering around $17 billion, only a handful of issuers are expected to make their way to the primary market this week.