Fixed income

The tax-exempt market may have experienced a sizable backup in yields on the week, but muni bond mutual funds still saw robust inflows.

The new Emerging Markets Corporate Bond Fund invests in bonds issued by companies in more than 30 countries in Asia, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The tax-exempt bond market started the week off on a slow note as traders waited to take direction from what is expected to be one of the larger weeks of new issuance in the muni market.

Volume in the tax-exempt market should jump back to pre-holiday levels this week, despite several days of municipal bond underperformance in the face of a powerful rally in Treasuries.

The big story in the municipal market this holiday-shortened week was the Treasury market.

Investors' search for yield have driven them out of equity mutual funds and into fixed income ETFs.

Fidelity Investments today unveiled its Fidelity Global Bond Fund and Fidelity International Bond Fund, available directly to investors, as well as through financial advisors.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has launched an online guide designed to help retail investors better understand the municipal bond market and the roles and responsibilities of muni bond brokers.

The increasing popularity of electronic brokerage has led the MSRB to examine whether retail investors who trade municipal securities through broker-dealers' online systems have adequate protection under its rules.

Equity funds? Not so much. Total estimated inflows to long-term mutual funds were $3.90 billion for the week ended Wednesday, May 16, according to data from the Investment Company Institute.

Analysts see various scenarios playing out for the U.S. municipal bond market should Greece exit the euro currency and default on its remaining debt.

iShares has filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch the iShares Latin America Bond Fund, which is benchmarked to the Barclays Latin America Bond Index.

The hunger for paper and search for yield in the municipal market reached their limits this week.

Individual investors have been flocking to municipal bond funds, searching for safety and relatively high yields.

Retail investors continue to rank credit quality high at the top of their list of criteria when shopping for municipal securities, whether they be individual bonds or tax-exempt bond funds.

Municipal bond mutual funds saw a huge week of inflows, as investors continue to see strength in the market.

Record-low long-term municipal bond yields may generate the most press these days, but investors still see the most value in the intermediate part of the yield curve.

Investors pulled an estimated $6.60 billion from U.S. stock funds the week ended May 2, six times the $1.17 billion they withdrew from the funds a week earlier.

Volume for the municipal market continues to tick down while investor demand for tax-exempt paper remains robust.

While individual investors — the primary owners of municipal debt — have generally increased their holdings in the last 10 years, some institutional investors have trimmed their holdings and others have been aggressive buyers.