Bonds

Action in the municipal bond market focused on the competitive arena on Thursday as billions of dollars of deals hit the screens. The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York led the way in a rare competitive sale, offering almost $2.5 billion of personal income tax receipt bonds. Municipals traded little changed for most

Victims of Flint, Michigan’s water contamination crisis are suing the underwriters of bonds sold in 2014 to finance a new water pipeline built to serve the city and surrounding area. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan seeks up to $2 billion in damages from JPMorgan Chase

The coronavirus pandemic, urban unrest, budget strife and climate volatility have widened the scope of crisis management. In the fourth and final podcast segment of our Future of Cities series, University of Illinois at Chicago public affairs dean Michael Pagano examines factors at play, including a deep national divide. Paul Burton hosts. (15 minutes)

Municipal issuers have a market in which to sell their bonds even if they are coming at a bit of a premium relative to lower yields experienced in August and September and a weaker U.S. Treasury market. New York City priced $1 billion of general obligation bonds for institutions on Wednesday after a two-day retail

Key Puerto Rico bondholders asked the court to set plan of adjustment deadlines for the Puerto Rico Oversight Board to meet. Four groups of investment funds filed the joint motion Tuesday night in the U.S. District Court for Puerto Rico, which is handling the bankruptcy. The litigants in Tuesday’s motion are the Lawful Constitutional Debt

Federal Open Market Committee members agreed the economy was recovering “faster than expected,” while business investment appeared to be rebounding, but they saw the overall gain as “uneven.” “In particular, with the reopening of many businesses and fewer people withdrawing from social interactions, consumer spending was rebounding sharply and appeared to have recovered about three-fourths

Michigan hits the market this week with $884 million of tobacco bonds in a refinancing designed to avert looming defaults. The Michigan Finance Authority plans to price the tobacco settlement asset-backed bonds Thursday. Jefferies is the lead manager. Citi, JPMorgan, Multi-Bank Securities, and Ramirez & Co. round out the syndicate. PFM Financial Advisors LLC is

Long Island’s Suffolk County is readying a nearly $300 million bond transaction even as it confronts a giant revenue shortfall. Suffolk is scheduled to issue $290 million of debt the third week of October to finance capital projects and seek budgetary savings. New York State’s fourth-most-populous county is facing an estimated $320 million budget deficit

Individual municipal buyers got a second chance to pick up some general obligation bonds from New York City on Tuesday while two Virginia issuers came to market with transportation and healthcare deals. Treasuries strengthened as equitities took a late dive after President Donald Trump announced that further stimulus talks were off the table until after

Michigan’s newly minted fiscal 2021 budget lifts some COVID-19 pandemic fiscal clouds for local governments and school districts, Moody’s Investors Service said. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last week signed a $63 billion budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 holding funding levels steady for downstream governments that had worried the state would push its

With close to $15 billion of new volume headed into the municipal market this week, it will be dicey for issuers and underwriters to get the deals done given the heavy glut of paper pricing into an uncertain environment, according to a New York underwriter. New York City is putting to the test investor appetite

State and local governments will have to deal with many unknowns as 2020 wraps up amid figuring out how to disclose pandemic concerns and conditions deteriorate for vulnerable credits, experts said at a Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee meeting Monday. FIMSAC met Monday to discuss various issues facing issuers. Former

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee will meet virtually on Monday. Bloomberg News The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee will discuss the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the municipal market next week. FIMSAC will meet virtually on Oct. 5 for its third meeting this

Illinois must tread cautiously as it considers piling on new debt or other one-time gimmicks to soothe coronavirus-driven revenue wounds if it wants to keep its investment grade rating, Moody’s Investors Service warned in a new report. The state’s “ability to weather the coronavirus pandemic without hurting its credit quality will require keeping growth of

The settlement of a federal lawsuit over an agreement to buy power from nuclear reactors under construction at Plant Vogtle in Georgia earned three bond issuers rating upgrades from Moody’s Investors Service. Georgia’s MEAG Power, the city of Jacksonville, Florida, and its utility, JEA, have received two-notch rating boosts since the Aug. 13 final settlement

From the uncertainty surrounding the presidential election to the continuing economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the municipal bond market will face a dislocated market environment as the new week begins. On Friday, President Donald Trump said he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for the coronavirus after one of his aides had

Stop-gap measures won’t help New York State’s fiscal condition long-term, a truth driven home by its first credit downgrade in 17 years, according to analysts. Moody’s Investors Service lowered its rating on New York’s general obligation bonds by one notch to Aa2 from Aa1 citing the state’s inaction in addressing budget gaps projected at $14.5

A candidate widely seen as less friendly to municipal bondholders has risen rapidly in the race to be Puerto Rico’s next governor. On Wednesday the El Nuevo Día news web site released a poll showing 37% of voters giving Popular Democratic Party candidate Charlie Delgado Altieri their support and 38% of them giving New Progressive

The largest health systems in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan cancelled plans to pursue a merger, they announced Friday. Illinois-based Advocate Aurora Health — created with the 2018 merger of Advocate which was Illinois largest system and Aurora which was Wisconsin’s largest — and Michigan-based Beaumont Health had signed non-binding letter of intent to join forces

Boeing’s plans to end production of the 787 Dreamliner in Everett, Washington is not expected to affect the credit quality of a Snohomish County public utility district that priced $85 million in refunding bonds last week, according to Fitch Ratings. Fitch had affirmed Snohomish County PUD #1’s ratings at AA-minus stable ahead of its plans

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. speaks during a television interview at the Senate Russell Office Building in Washington. “You know what, we’ll find our middle ground,” Pelosi said during an appearance on MSNBC. “We’re legislators. We’ll get the job done.” Bloomberg News A glimmer of hope for another round of direct federal aid to state and

President Donald Trump announced early Friday that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19, shortly after one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, had fallen ill with the coronavirus. “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this

New York City and New York State, their finances reeling from the effects of COVID-19, were downgraded late Thursday by Moody’s Investors Service. Moody’s dropped city general obligation bonds to Aa2 from Aa1, affecting $38.7 billion of city debt. The new rating will apply to the city’s $900 million fiscal 2021 Serices C issuance coming

After a one-week blip, initial jobless claims continued their slow dance lower. Initial jobless claims declined to a seasonally adjusted 837,000 in the week ended Sept. 26, from the previous week’s upwardly revised level of 873,000, originally reported as 870,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists polled by IFR Markets projected 850,000 claims in the

The civic arm of a prominent Chicago business group threw cold water on the state’s efforts to move to a graduated income tax in the absence of long-term fiscal plan that tackles pensions and overdue bills through reforms, cuts, and new revenues. Voters will decide the fate of the constitutional amendment — championed by Gov.

The U.S. economy should continue to recover from the coronavirus-induced recession even if Congress puts off consideration of additional fiscal stimulus to 2021, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said. “There may be enough resources right now, at least for 2020,” Bullard said Wednesday as part of a virtual question-and-answer period at

Market participants overwhelmingly think the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board landed on the right person to lead the organization after a lengthy process. Kim, MSRB’s chief operating officer, was announced Tuesday as the new CEO starting on Oct. 1. After a year-long process, the board went with an internal candidate. After Former CEO Lynnette Kelly left

New Jersey’s $32.7 billion budget for its shortened nine-month 2021 fiscal year includes the state’s largest reserve levels in more than a decade as a backstop for revenue hits that may result from a possible second wave of coronavirus. The approved spending plan, which Gov. Phil Murphy signed Tuesday afternoon, calls for a $2.5 billion

Municipal bond buyers got their first taste of this week’s new deals on Tuesday while munis traded flat, with yields steady along most of the AAA scales. “The municipal bond market is little changed,” ICE Data Services said, adding that “the high-yield market has a weaker tone.” A continual theme for September has been anemic

The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking for comments on whether the current regulatory structure for alternative trading systems needs to be changed in light of criticisms that the current regime is inconsistent. On Monday, the SEC requested comment on a concept release that closely follows 2018 recommendations from the SEC’s Fixed Income Market Structure