Bonds

The tax-exempt market languished through a quiet summer Friday as municipals finished unchanged for the sixth straight trading session. IHS Ipreo estimates supply for the upcoming week at $7.04 billion. The week’s supply is composed of $5.36 billion of negotiated deals and $1.68 billion of competitive sales. Breaking it down, Refinitiv MMD calculated the tax-exempt

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole gathering, which was due to be held in person Aug. 26-28, is now shifting to a virtual format, the bank announced Friday. The regional Fed bank said it was making the move “due to the recently elevated COVID-19 health risk level in Teton County, Wyoming.”

Northeast municipal issuers sold $59.9 billion of debt over the first six months of this year, up 4.8% from the same period of 2020 as states, cities and agencies adjusted to the COVID-19 environment and other variables. That included a 13.3% spike in the first quarter, to $29.5 billion from $26 billion. Many traditional issuers,

Puerto Rico’s government is taking steps toward increasing the island’s minimum wage, which could ultimately affect more than half of the work force. On Wednesday the Puerto Rico House of Representatives voted 29 in favor, nine against for a bill to raise the minimum wage, based on a compromise with the leaders of the Puerto

Municipals remained steady on an otherwise lackluster Thursday as the New York Liberty Development Corp. came to market with $1.22 billion of green bonds. Thursday saw the pricing of the last of the week’s large deals and a typical slow summer Friday lies ahead. A New York underwriter said the secondary continued to trade sideways

States could provide twice as many 4% low-income housing tax credits without being further constrained by their private-activity bond caps under legislation introduced that could be included in the budget resolution package. Sen. Ron Wyden the Oregon Democrat who chairs the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee, announced the Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All (DASH) Act

HilltopSecurities has hired two key financial services leaders from Piper Sandler for its public finance division in Florida and Minnesota. John Pellicci, former managing director at Piper Sandler, will serve as senior managing director, head of municipal high yield underwriting and sales at Hilltop. Yaffa Rattner, also formerly managing director at Piper Sandler, joined Hilltop

Investors digested three mammoth deals of $1 billion or more in the primary market on a heavy day of issuance as municipals remained unchanged, Treasuries were mostly steady, and more than $2.5 billion flowed into long-term municipal bonds. Primary market activity was brisk Wednesday as all eyes turned to the Federal Open Market Committee’s July

Edward “Ted” Wright will begin Monday as chief investment officer of the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds, which consist of six state pension funds and nine state trust funds. Wright will advise state Treasurer Shawn Wooden, the sole trustee of the funds, and take responsibility for the day-to-day management of the funds with assets

Fitch Ratings has upgraded Sacramento, California’s issuer default rating to AA from AA-minus. The outlook is stable. Monday’s upgrade “reflects the city’s steady improvements in financial resilience based on incremental gains in reserves. Sacramento’s underlying economic growth coupled with a voter-approved sales tax, which has been permanently renewed, have fueled the increase in reserves,” Fitch

Municipals were steady and relative value increased on the long end of the market amid rising Treasuries Tuesday. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority came to market with over $800 million of bonds as two New York issuers offered large deals to hungry retail investors ahead of Wednesday’s release of the Federal Open Market

Automatic transfers into Illinois’ meager budget reserve and empty pension stabilization fund would kick in when the state holds its unpaid bill backlog below $3 billion at fiscal year close under legislation Comptroller Susana Mendoza is promoting. Illinois’ budget stabilization fund held just $9 million last week — enough to cover just 30 minutes of

The Federal Reserve told a judge not to scrap Libor as requested by consumers in a lawsuit because it would pose a risk to financial stability and undermine years of global planning for a transition to a new benchmark for borrowing rates. A staged transition away from the London interbank offered rate is underway globally,

Municipals were steady on Monday as New York City took orders of over $110 million on the first day of a two-day retail order period for $1.039 billion of general obligation bonds. Investors prepared for a week that will see nearly $10 billion of new volume come to market. Triple-A benchmark bonds from 2022 to

Illinois will sell $500 million of new money and refunding bonds under its sales-tax-backed Build Illinois program in the state’s first primary outing since a trifecta of positive rating actions. The financings will raise $340 million of new money for capital projects and refund $160 million of debt for present value savings, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s

California’s housing crisis has propelled a community college to issue junk bonds to fund housing for its students. Lead manager Stifel priced $68.3 million in college housing revenue bonds for the California School Finance Authority on July 15 to support the project at Santa Rosa Junior College. Santa Rosa Junior College is the first community

Nine mayors from across the country backed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s call for Congress to approve both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the $3.5 billion budget reconciliation package. The same number of moderate Democrats in the House came out Thursday against Pelosi’s approach, saying the House shouldn’t delay passage of the bipartisan infrastructure

Forward delivery bonds have already surpassed their annual record for issuance as issuers use the tool, along with taxable refundings, to replace the loss of tax-exempt advance refundings. Forward delivery bonds are attractive to both issuers looking for savings and investors seeking any incremental yield in an uber low-rate environment, Barclays PLC said in a

Municipal bonds were little changed to slightly firmer on the short end Friday after a week in which the longer end of the yield curve brought yields back to early July levels, with pressure from more supply and a weaker U.S. Treasury market. UST yields reversed their negative course with the 10-year falling seven basis

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will let municipal advisor principals take the Series 54 qualification exam online and file for an extension of the deadline to pass that test after advisors said they were unsettled by news of COVID-19 exposure at a testing site. The MSRB posted a notice Wednesday afternoon saying it is working

The curve steepening continued Thursday with a steady tone inside 10-years and pressure on bonds outside there forced another session of one to two basis point cuts to benchmark yield curves as U.S. Treasury yields also rose and equities were mixed. Triple-A benchmarks have the 10-year at 0.90%-0.91% and the 30-year at 1.48%-1.50%. With the

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George said the central bank needs to move ahead with reducing monetary stimulus, citing expectations for continued labor-market gains. “Now, with the recovery underway, a transition from extraordinary monetary policy accommodation to more neutral settings must follow,” George said in the text of a virtual speech to

Chicago must close a $733 million gap in its next budget as it looks to federal relief and savings from a $1 billion refunding to balance the books this year after scrapping scoop-and-toss plans. “While we still have hard work ahead of us in order to close this gap, this figure is a great indication

Municipals faced pressure outside of 10 years Wednesday, moving benchmarks on those bonds cheaper by two basis points, while U.S. Treasuries were little changed and new issues showed the spread tightening that continues on sought-after credits. In the primary, an airport deal out of Pittsburgh saw compelling levels for the sector that has seen spread

The taxable municipal securities market was primarily driven by institutional trading in 2020, in contrast to the individual-investor-driven Build America Bonds-era boom. The increasing influence of institutional market participants is consistent with overarching trends in the tax-exempt market, but is seen more so in taxables, a Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board report finds. “Both the taxable

Late in the fourth quarter of his tenure, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has punted on a fix for the 70-year-old Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The mayor last week, without mentioning any cost or funding mechanism, announced a plan to keep the city-owned 1.5-mile crumbling, layer-cake triple cantilever from Sands Street to Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn

High-speed rail, championed by President Joe Biden on the campaign trail, was shunted to the sideline in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package approved by the Senate Tuesday. It does, however, include $66 billion for intercity rail programs, which the White House calls “the largest investment in passenger rail since the creation of Amtrak 50 years

Municipals felt the pressure of an increase of supply and a weaker U.S. Treasury market, and benchmarks saw two- to three-basis-point cuts to scales, but new issues repriced to lower yields. The 10-year muni hit 0.90% on ICE Data Services scale and just below that on Refinitiv MMD, Bloomberg BVAL and IHS Markit, reaching early

The nation’s largest underwriters of municipal bonds will soon begin operating under a Texas law that bans them from state contracts if their policies are said to discriminate against the firearms industry. Senate Bill 19, one of several pro-gun pieces of legislation signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, takes effect Sept. 1. The law

Municipal market participants question the wisdom of executing Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy without local legislative approval for new bonds and instead relying on court-approved debt, as the Oversight Board is exploring. New bonds are key to Puerto Rico’s exit from bankruptcy, as are cuts to Puerto Rico’s three main pension systems: the Employees Retirement System, Judicial