Fixed income

As new issuance of municipal bonds has been muted and interest rate risk remains low, the fees that bankers are paid to underwrite deals has been steadily declining.

Flows into municipal bond mutual funds scraped and clawed into positive territory the week of May 22, at $63 million.

Flows into tax-exempt money market funds continued to see-saw this week as $906.5 million arrived in the week ended May 20, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Mutual funds picked up $8.51 billion for the week ended Wednesday, May 15, according to the Investment Company Institute, but bond funds suffered.

What will happen if 1994's sudden burst in interest rates repeats itself? That is the question being asked by industry overseers and by investors who want to protect their commitments to fixed-income investments after four years of historically low payouts. That year, interest rates on 10-year Treasury notes were hiked more than two points to nearly 8%. This jump slashed more than $600 billion from the value of U.S. bonds at a time when total market size…

Credit Suisse has filed with the SEC to launch the Gold and Income Strategy Fund, which will be available in institutional shares

The municipal bond market may benefit from the shake-up at the Internal Revenue Service as the newly named acting commissioner Daniel Werfel has close ties with state and local governments and is viewed by market groups as a strong ally.

Aside from an $800 million New York City general obligation refunding planned for Wednesday, there will be few large deals to grab investors' attention in the municipal market this week as approximately $5 billion in new issuance is expected on the heels of a quiet end to last week's activity.

Tax-exempt money market funds had a hard time holding onto what little inflows they regained last week as $1.72 billion exited the industry and total net assets settled at $258.36 billion in the week ended May 13, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

Stronger inflows made their way into municipal bond mutual funds, at $306 million for the week of May 15.

Pacific Investment Management Co., whose co-founder Bill Gross said last week the 30-year bull market in bonds is probably over, attracted the most client deposits ever in the first quarter.

Stock and bond funds, including exchange traded funds, maintained a strong pace of net inflows in April, according to fund industry researcher Strategic Insight (SI).

Municipal bond mutual funds saw inflows into weekly-reporting funds, at $22 million, for the first time in 10 weeks.

Tax season has come and gone, yet the run of outflows from municipal bond mutual funds dragged into its ninth straight week, at $391 million.

Investors plunged back into bond funds with gusto for the week ended April 24, after two consecutive weeks of taking their foot off the petal, according to estimates from the Investment Company Institute.

Fixed-income exchange-traded funds have made big strides in asset gathering over the past five years, rising from $53.7 billion in 2008 to $229.1 billion by March of 2013, according to Lipper.

With tax season having passed, muni industry watchers anticipate the outflows to fade soon and interest beyond the front end of the yield curve to rise.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has updated its guidance for individual municipal bond investors by urging them to ask brokers questions about issuer disclosures and bond insurer ratings.

Tax-free money market funds continued to suffer the effects of federal income tax season as investors withdrew $5.58 billion from industry, leaving total net assets at $263.91 billion, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The market saw outflows to muni bond mutual funds for a seventh consecutive week at $535 million.