Secondary bond market

The rally stemmed from the weak nonfarm payrolls report and revisions brought down the three-month average to 29,000 jobs per month, further solidifying the chance of a rate cut in September, said Chris Brigati, managing director and CIO at SWBC.

Investors added $672.3 million to municipal bond mutual funds in the week ended Wednesday, following $590.4 million of inflows the prior week, according to LSEG Lipper data.

Looking solely at internal factors, "the municipal market itself is still doing well, reasonably via the temporary drop in new issue supply amid a more lasting reduction in reinvestment flows," said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics.

Thanks to strong technicals and the anticipated interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve at its September meeting, municipal bonds posted positive returns of 0.87% in August, reversing their losses of 0.20% in July, according to Jason Wong, vice president municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

Issuance for the week of Sept. 2 is at an estimated $7.457 billion, with $6.179 billion of negotiated deals and $1.278 billion of competitive deals on tap, according to LSEG.

With the break in issuance this week, the market has firmed a bit, said Tim McGregor, managing partner at Riverbend Capital Advisors.

While issuance has been on a record pace this year, this week sees a slight slowdown in activity, caused by participants going on vacation, said Jeff Timlin, a partner at Sage Advisory.

While issuance is up year-over-year, weeks like this can be difficult to find the right deals, said Whitney Fitts, director of municipal portfolio management at Appleton Partners.

"We expect subdued activity again [this] week heading into the Labor Day holiday," Birch Creek strategists said.

Munis underperformed a UST rally, which had everything to do with Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole symposium and future Fed action, said Cooper Howard, a fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab.