Bonds

Munis were weaker to close out the week, playing catch up to Thursday’s larger U.S. Treasury losses and preparing for a larger new-issue calendar led by billion-dollar issues from the New York Dormitory Authority and triple-A rated Minnesota, along with multiple large deals from Texas school districts. U.S. Treasuries were firmer Friday and equities rallied.

Congress adjourned for its long summer break Thursday still far apart on top-line 2024 spending levels with only a few weeks left to reconcile the difference. There are also looming deadlines to pass a new farm bill and reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration. Congress faces a partial government shutdown if it hasn’t passed funding bills

Hospitals, already facing multiple challenges, are being stressed by a heat wave that has hit a large swath of the United States, according to a Moody’s Investors Service analyst. A heat dome that initially impacted California and Texas has spread across most of the southwest and is also affecting some Northwest states like Idaho. An

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has voted to move ahead with its controversial amendments to Rule G-14 on trade reporting, changing the trade reporting window to one minute from 15 minutes. That was approved during its quarterly board meeting that took place July 26-27, during which the board also approved a new $47 million budget

Issuers have had to become creative to derive interest cost savings in the years since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated the tax-exempt advanced refunding option. A clear successor has yet to emerge, but rising interest rates, falling prices and fluctuating relative value prompted issuers to consider tender offers as a way

Munis yields rose Thursday, following and outperforming a U.S. Treasury sell-off on the heels of strong-than-expected economic data. Equities ended down. Thursday’s “economic data offers the latest evidence that the U.S. economy is weathering the fastest rate hikes in a generation without much damage to the major gear-works of the economy,” said Wells Fargo Securities

The ongoing challenges faced by publicly-owned mass transit authorities are looming large as federal funding for COVID relief will start drying up in in 2024. Possible solutions to careening over the financial cliffs include raising taxes, raising fares, tapping future casino revenue, and instituting controversial congestion traffic plans.  “Just last week we unveiled our financial

Munis were steady to weaker in spots Wednesday, while U.S. Treasuries were firmer after the Fed hiked rates 25 basis points and signaled more may come this year. Equities ended the session in the red. The Fed just “delivered a 25bps hike and by holding firm to their data dependent rhetoric and are trying to

The cost of protecting U.S. infrastructure against climate change is costly — but the cost of doing nothing is higher. That was the message today from Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and other witnesses who testified at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the fiscal fallout from climate change. Louisiana is one of the states

Municipals were little changed in secondary trading Tuesday as the focus was on the primary where the state of Washington sold large general obligation bond deals ahead of the FOMC rates decision. Treasury yields rose a basis point or two throughout most of the curve and equities ended the session in the black. The two-year

A collection of muni market affinity groups are hosting their second annual summer mixer in August on the rooftop of Nixon Peabody’s downtown Los Angeles office. The event will be held Aug. 10 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Last summer’s inaugural event drew just north of 100 people, and they are hoping for a

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s executive board last week approved a $15.7 billion capital plan for 2023 to 2028. Approximately 60% of capital spending called for is “focused on improving the reliability and resiliency” of the existing infrastructure, MassDOT chief Gina Fiandaca wrote in an introduction to the plan, with an additional 23% going towards

California State Treasurer Fiona Ma has hired two more deputy state treasurers to fill out her senior leadership team. Stephanie Tom and Khaim Morton were named deputy state treasurers, joining Patrick Henning, chief deputy state treasurer and Juan Fernandez, deputy treasurer for public finance. Ma was reelected in November. Several executives decided not to continue

The bond market was quiet to end the week, with munis and U.S. Treasuries little changed ahead of next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Equities were up near the close. The two-year muni-to-Treasury ratio Friday was at 59%, the three-year at 61%, the five-year at 62%, the 10-year at 65% and the 30-year at

Parties in a bankruptcy case involving a bond-financed Arizona participant sports venue objected to a motion to either appoint an independent Chapter 11 trustee or dismiss the case, arguing either move would be detrimental or premature. Legacy Cares, the venue’s owner, which filed for bankruptcy May 1 in Arizona federal court, along with bond trustee

State departments of transportation are breathing a sigh of relief after the Federal Highway Administration resolved the bulk of a nearly 20-year-old accounting glitch that threatened $3.5 billion of infrastructure funds. The resolution of $2.5 billion of the $3.5 billion discrepancy between two accounting systems used by the federal government frees up the money for

New Jersey sued the federal government to block a plan to charge drivers entering midtown Manhattan, claiming the green light the US gave New York’s congestion pricing proposal was ill-considered and missed numerous risks to Garden State residents. The challenge came Friday morning in a federal lawsuit the state filed against the US Department of Transportation and

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years and granting $4 billion per fiscal year to the Airport Improvement Project. The bill, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, was passed in a 351-69 bipartisan vote, and will now move on to the Senate

BondWave LLC’s portfolio analytics suite, Effi, has introduced a new feature, Rules, where users can filter attributes of bonds in their portfolios.  Michael Ruvo, BondWave’s CEO, described Rules as an “overlay” to each portfolio, where users can apply criteria including 20 different portfolio constraints and almost 20 different objectives.  Through Rules, users can filter for

New Jersey Transit’s newly passed fiscal 2024 budget includes no new fare hikes and increased spending year-over-year, in the face of a looming fiscal cliff. NJ Transit’s board passed a $2.86 billion operating budget on Wednesday that’s 4.1% bigger than fiscal 2023’s, with 60% of costs associated with labor and fringe benefits and 31% linked