Muni-Bond Buying Falls to Decade Low as Investors Balk at Yields
- Customer purchases plummet as trading offers few opportunities
- Benchmark 10-year yields have fallen to the lowest since April
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The buy-and-hold strategy that dominates the municipal-bond market is lacking the buying side of that equation.
Securities dealers’ customers, including individuals and mutual funds, purchased less than $20 billion of state and local government debt in each of the last 27 trading days, according to a rolling five-day average compiled by research firm Municipal Market Analytics. That’s the lowest level of trading in at least a decade, a sign that individuals are hesitant to buy more municipal debt with benchmark interest rates close to a five-month low.