John Miller See 2025 Muni Supply Exlipsing Record After Shakeup

(Bloomberg) -Veteran municipal bond investor John Miller asks for another banner year for new loans of state and local governments, even after the global trade war that has ripped fluctuations and bonds through the usually quiet Muni market. The head of high return muni funds at First Eagle Investment Management forecasts long-term municipal sales to $ 550 billion this year, with the record of 2024. His estimates come after the issuers hit dozens of transactions earlier this week as a tariff-driven markets were transferred in municipal bonds. Transactions have been delayed, while benchmarking yields for mature securities rose about 85 basis points in three days and reached the highest in more than a decade. Such a steep move is so rapidly rare for state and local debt that are usually more isolated against the wide fluctuations seen in other asset classes. “We can breathe a little until things sit down,” Miller said in an interview. Despite the disruptions, he expects a strong year for issuers coming to the market. ” The abrupt cheap rushed back the investors of bargains on Wednesday when Muni Trading had its busiest day ever, while ETFs connected to the asset class scored $ 630 million in inflow. As fast as the route was, after the three -day returns fell almost as fast, he dropped about 48 basis points on Thursday, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. Although transactions are expected to continue largely, they will not go back to the record rate of the first quarter, says Miller, who joined First Eagle in January 2024 after three decades in Nuveen. His prediction of a record year in the early 2024 was provisional, although new expenses were over $ 440 billion, the high point of his view. The one area that is unlikely to see sales boom is where Miller has cemented his reputation as a productive investor: high returns. Some delays in this niche can turn into cancellations, he warned. Without major offers, new debt in this segment is unlikely to exceed last year’s volume, he said. Higher returns, including those that assessed BBB and lower, reached about $ 35 billion in volume last year, according to Miller’s estimates. So far in 2025, the segment has seen about $ 9 billion in sales. He expects the full year to report the same or low-single-digit percentage growth, Miller said. “Over, below, it can be very close to it,” Miller said. “I don’t think a high return will necessarily have such a large increase.” More stories like these are available on Bloomberg.com © 2025 Bloomberg LP first published: 11 Apr 2025, 09:20 IST