Secondary bond market

April's "poor performance" pushed munis further into negative territory, but "despite the poor start to the year, they may still end the year positive," said Cooper Howard, a fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab.

"It'll be very interesting to see when an event happens or the market get sloppy, what the secondary market does," said a sellside panelist at a Bond Buyer market outlook panel in Florida.

"We remain cautious with respect to duration given the uncertain macro and geopolitical environment though optically, yields seem attractive in the current range," said Wells Fargo's Vikram Rai.

A supply surge hits the market as The Bond Buyer 30-day visible bond volume ticks in at $17.67 billion, $10 billion of which will come the first full week of May, just as macroeconomic data moves all markets to rally.

Assured's controlling vote is "important to investors who were reassured to hear that there would be a large sophisticated party with a significant economic interest in the success of the project," the insurer said.

The "historical runway" heading into Memorial Day is favorable, rolling into the summer redemption months of June through August, said James Pruskowski, chief investment officer at 16Rock Asset Management.

Munis posted losses in April, returning negative 1.24%. The asset class is also seeing losses of 1.62% year-to-date.

While munis were steady Tuesday, yields have risen over the past several weeks as "larger supply is part of a strong [year-to-date] trend for tax-exempts," said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics.

Preliminary issuance figures for April are at $39.39 billion, up 18% from April 2023.

"Bond market investors are all wishing that April was behind us as they are anxious to hear the Fed's statement at its next FOMC meeting," noted BofA Global Research. "The statement should be no surprise as the market consensus has converged to 'higher for longer' rates.