Biggest Exodus Since Whitney Ignores May Win Streak: Muni Credit
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Individual investors fleeing the $3.7 trillion U.S. municipal-bond market at the fastest rate since 2011 are doing so at their own peril. Local debt has logged gains for five straight years in the month of May.
Muni mutual funds have lost assets for nine consecutive weeks, as individuals pulled out $2.5 billion, Lipper US Fund Flows data show. That’s the longest stretch since mid-2011, when investors withdrew $26 billion over 24 straight weeks following a December 2010 projection by banking analyst Meredith Whitney that local-government defaults would tally “hundreds of billions of dollars” within a year.