Bonds

President Joe Biden plans to name New York Federal Reserve markets chief Daleep Singh to serve as deputy national security adviser, a move the White House says reflects a commitment to prioritizing U.S. workers in foreign policy. Singh oversaw implementation of the New York Fed’s emergency facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic, and previously served in

Investors looking for yield pounced on Detroit’s speculative grade paper Thursday, sending the city’s yield penalties to the lowest levels since it imposed losses on bondholders in Chapter 9 bankruptcy. The junk-rated city’s $135 million stand-alone, tax-exempt general obligation tranche landed at yields of 1.91% to 2.51% and spreads of 100 bps to 128 bps

Municipal yield curves held steady Thursday as municipal bond mutual funds saw another week of inflows, ratios fell to record lows in 10-years and spread compression continues, leaving investors to search for any incremental yield in a supply-starved market. Municipal to U.S. Treasury ratios dropped to record lows Thursday with ratios at 63% in 10

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has sued San Francisco Unified School District and its school board to compel the school district to reopen, charging it hasn’t created an sufficient reopening plan. The school board and the district’s reopening plan is woefully inadequate and doesn’t meet the basic requirements set by the state to offer

Struggling state and local governments need between $100 billion and $350 billion in a relief bill, as lawmakers hash out how to remediate an upcoming $90 billion municipal shortfall. During a House Financial Services Committee hearing Thursday morning, economists and government officials agreed that municipalities need more direct aid, but disagreed on the price. Municipalities

All eyes were on the primary Wednesday as several large New York negotiated deals and competitive sales came to market with demand there keeping secondary traders on the sidelines. U.S. Treasuries lost ground and equities gained on better private-sector payrolls numbers and Democrats giving a nod toward moving on stimulus with or without Republican sign-on.

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi proposed a General Fund budget for the coming fiscal year with 6.6% more spending than the current budget. On Wednesday Pierluisi said he would seek a $10.713 billion General Fund budget for fiscal year 2022, which starts July 1. By comparison, the Puerto Rico Oversight Board-approved General Fund budget for

Chicago and Joliet, Illinois, struck a preliminary water purchase agreement that will bring new revenue to Chicago’s enterprise system. The Joliet City Council voted last week to pick Chicago over Hammond, Indiana, as its new water source. The state’s fourth largest city, with about 147,000 residents, is about 45 miles southwest of Chicago. Chicago’s Eugene

Texas sales tax revenue topped $3 billion in January but fell just shy of the total collected one year earlier. At $3.07 billion, the January collections were 0.3% below those of January 2020, the last time monthly revenues exceeded $3 billion. The majority of January sales tax revenue is based on sales made in December

In a move to expand its public finance reach nationally, Raymond James has hired veteran municipal banker Jim Tricolli as a managing director. Tricolli will provide professional counsel to Gavin Murrey, executive vice president and head of public finance/debt investment banking, as the firm looks to expand across the country. Tricolli will be based in

Investment funds filed an appeal of a court’s ruling that the United States government is not liable for losses the Puerto Rico Oversight Board imposes on the Puerto Rico bonds they hold. Altair Global Credit Opportunities Fund and 15 other investment funds filed the appeal Jan. 22 in the United States Court of Appeals for

The majority of the charter schools that Equitable Facilities Foundation provides financing to carried on with plans to build schools despite the challenges wrought by the pandemic. EFF, a 501c(3) social impact fund that leverages $200 million in equity and backing it has from the Walton family, was only in its second year when COVID-19

Munis were little changed as a massive snowstorm pummeled the Northeast triggering states of emergency and vaccine cancelations. Trading was quiet and triple-A benchmarks were unmoved even as U.S. Treasuries faded and equities rebounded from losses and volatility last week. In the primary, a lone competitive deal of size got done as Worcester, Massachusetts, (Aa3/AA-//)

R. Wade Norris, managing member of Norris George & Ostrow in Washington, D.C. said the outlook for 2021 is for a “very strong” multifamily housing sector if Congress continues to provide fiscal relief.Norris George & Ostrow Tax-exempt multifamily housing bond issuance is expected to have a banner year in large part because of the recent

Municipalities are becoming convinced that recovery to pre-pandemic levels may not be possible without robust direct federal support. In a webinar put on by the Milken Institute as part of its Program for Excellence and Equity in Public Finance, launched this week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said her city has had to raise taxes and

Project finance and public finance attorneys Adam Gordon and Jade Turner-Bond were elected to Nixon Peabody LLP’s global partnership, effective Feb. 1. Gordon, based in New York, concentrates on infrastructure, economic development and project finance. He routinely is bond counsel, disclosure counsel, underwriters’ counsel and bank counsel on tax-exempt and taxable bond issuances. He has

After reporting a surplus of $3.3 million at the end of fiscal year 2020, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has temporarily reduced certain market-based fees by 40% for a year and a half. The MSRB announced that decision Jan. 29 after its quarterly board meeting earlier in the week. The move will cost the MSRB

Investors on the hunt for yield with few pickings scooped up Chicago Public Schools’ junk paper Wednesday driving down the district’s yield penalties paid in the primary market to their lowest in years. The 10-year in the $560 million sale that marked the Chicago Board of Education’s first COVID-19 era sale settled at a yield

Municipal volume in January fell year-over-year as issuers hit the pause button while contemplating COVID-19 effects on their budgets and the potential for direct aid from Washington. Total volume fell 26.7% in January to $24.023 billion from $32.792 billion in 2020. Tax-exempt financings fell 32.6% to $14.662 billion from $23.995 in 2020, refundings fell 14.8%

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan predicted an “enthusiastic” internal discussion over the U.S. central bank’s massive bond-buying program, while vowing to be patient in judging when the economy has made sufficient progress to warrant scaling it back. “I don’t want to associate or even think about associating a time frame with that,”

Municipal secondary activity was quiet Friday but weakness in U.S. Treasuries and an unsettled equities market led to small cuts to triple-A benchmarks around the five- to 10-year part of the curve. About $7.44 billion of issuance is expected for the first week of February, up from the $5.95 billion issued the last week of

The age-old dynamic of state border wars takes on a new twist with workplace technology and a global health crisis spur an intriguing case that the U.S. Supreme Court could decide. Legal, revenue and municipal credit ramifications could extend far and wide. Is the state border a barrier to taxing the incomes of employees of

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ $96.6 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2021-2022, increases spending and counts on debt service savings of $40.8 million and bond savings of $64.2 million. Over half of the $4.3 billion rise in the budget proposal, $2.6 billion, is related to spending increases due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The ‘Florida Leads’

Municipal yields were steady across the curve as rising U.S. Treasury yields took some of the shine off of a two-day muni rally, but inflows continued to hit records with another multi-billion week. Refinitiv Lipper reported $2.79 billion of inflows into municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending Jan. 27, a record. It was

The Foothill-Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency received so much interest in a tender offering that it eliminated the need for the vast majority of a planned open-market refunding bond deal. “We were so successful with the tender and exchange that we ended up issuing fewer bonds,” said Amy Potter, chief financial officer for the California toll

Moody’s Investors Service has revamped the way it rates K-12 school districts, which is likely to bring rating changes to hundreds of school districts across the country. When it announced its new rating methodology Tuesday, Moody’s placed 637 of the roughly 3,400 school districts it rates on review for upgrade or downgrade, affecting $65 billion

Illinois avoided the grim, early COVID-19 tax loss warnings as a recovery began quicker than expected thanks to federal stimulus and changes in consumer spending, a University of Illinois pandemic task force found. The net effect of revenue losses from the pandemic through November totaled $801 million for the state’s “big three” sources: personal and

Louisiana is asking the federal government for an additional $3 billion in aid to help pay for recovery in communities affected by hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta last year. Gov. John Bel Edwards wrote to President Joe Biden requesting the additional federal funding. The governor also asked the White House for a reduction in the

The scourge of COVID-19 has slammed the residents and the economy of Miami, but the resilience of its people has kept the Magic City vibrant, growing and moving ahead, Mayor Francis Suarez said in his State of the City address on Tuesday. “Over the past year we have been tested, we have adapted, and we

U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan warned the territory’s underfunded pensions were becoming critical and said help is coming for the ailing power system. Bryan addressed these and other financial topics in his annual state of the territory speech Tuesday evening. Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan said the island’s pension system was in an “accelerating