Bonds

Wisconsin Capital Finance Director David Erdman will retire in July after a 32-year career with the state, the last seven in the role of debt manager during which the state won upgrades and his stature as an advocate for the issuer community grew. Erdman plans to leave the state July 2 and on July 5

Yuba Water Agency officials say it’s only sheer luck that’s kept its 313,000-acre watershed in California’s Central Valley from burning. Several watersheds around Yuba’s, which suffer the same dry, overstocked conditions amid the state’s extended drought, have experienced megafires, said Joanna Lessard, the agency’s project manager for the watershed resilience and forest health program.  “We’ve

Municipals were mixed as participants mostly sat on sidelines while U.S. Treasuries rallied on the short end after the Fed hiked rates a half-percentage point. Equities rallied to close the day. The 50 basis point rate hike is the steepest increase since 2000 and follows the 25 basis point rate hike in March. The bond

The CEOs of three large U.S. banks are raising concerns about a possible recession, saying the Federal Reserve has a tricky job ahead in combating inflation without sparking a downturn. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan and Morgan Stanley’s James Gorman warned in separate interviews Wednesday that drastic interest rate hikes from

The U.S. economy will probably fall into a recession as the Federal Reserve combats multidecade-high inflation, Randal Quarles, the Fed’s former vice chair for supervision, said. “Given the intensity of inflation, the degree to which unemployment has been driven down — to bring that back into an equilibrium, it’s unlikely the Fed is going to

The Puerto Rico Oversight Board submitted a proposed Plan of Adjustment for the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority and proposed a confirmation hearing for it to be held in mid-September. The board submitted the proposed plan, proposed Disclosure Statement, and three other motions concerning the legal processes on the road to confirmation on Monday

The Fed’s choreographed rate-raising exercise may well tail off by year’s end, several prominent asset managers said Monday. The managers were speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference Beverly Hills. . “I think the Fed will turn dovish by the end of the year and that will lead to a lot of opportunity on the

Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy process showed that credit fundamentals outweigh legal protections in determining defaults and that pensions continue to be treated better than bonds in recoveries, analysts say. Those lessons and others were outlined in a Wednesday Moody’s Investors Service report, “Puerto Rico bondholder recovery patterns echo major municipal bankruptcies,” authored by Senior Vice President

Oregon filed amended offering documents Thursday for a recent lottery bond deal after the state Court of Appeals reversed a $1 billion verdict against the state in a dispute over forest management. The Department of Administrative Services had priced $217.7 million in lottery revenue bonds in two tranches of taxable and tax-exempt debt two weeks

Municipal issuance dropped 7.5% year-over-year in April, again owing to a drop in taxable and refunding volumes in the face of continued market volatility and rising interest rates. The $34 billion figure is slightly up from the 10-year average of $33.612 billion. Total April volume was $34.329 billion in 729 deals versus $37.105 billion in

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to issue a request for comment on a retrospective review of its Rule G-14 in hopes of cutting down the standard 15 minute time of trade reporting window that has been in place since 2005. That was decided at the MSRB’s quarterly board meeting which concluded Thursday. The MSRB

S&P Global Ratings revised the outlook on the Reedy Creek Improvement District to developing from stable due to the uncertainty as to what will happen next in the economic/political saga playing out in Florida. “The outlook revision to developing reflects our view that there is at least a one-in-three chance that the credit profile securing

Municipals were mixed Friday, outperforming larger losses in U.S. Treasury ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting next week where the Fed is expected to implement another rate hike. Equities sold off led by tech stocks. Triple-A benchmarks were cut up to two basis points, depending on the scale, while UST yields rose seven

S&P Global Ratings placed the New Orleans’ A-plus long-term and underlying ratings on general obligation and limited property tax debt on CreditWatch with negative implications due to a lack of timely information. “The CreditWatch action reflects that we will likely withdraw these ratings if we do not receive the city’s fiscal 2020 audited financial statements

Challenges to the Puerto Rico Plan of Adjustment heard by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Thursday will not impact the terms for bondholders, but may affect the government’s ability to pay debt service. Puerto Rico credit unions argued Puerto Rico’s central government engaged in fraud by pressuring them to buy nearly $1

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown said Wednesday that the Senate would wait to confirm President Biden’s Federal Reserve picks until the return of Democrats recovering from the coronavirus. Brown, an Ohio Democrat, blocked votes this week on a second term for Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve and the nomination of Philip

Oklahoma is poised to follow in the footsteps of Texas in preventing banks from participating in municipal bond deals if they “discriminate” against the firearm industry or “boycott” fossil fuel energy companies with two bills nearing final legislative approval this week. On the gun front, House Bill 3144, which passed the state Senate in a

Chicago is counting on future casino tax revenue to avoid reverting to bad fiscal practices or raising property taxes as it seeks to structurally balance its books, the city’s chief financial officer warned City Council members at a hearing this week.   Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration last month narrowed a list of five casino development

The Puerto Rico Oversight Board rejected several local government initiatives, including the governor’s proposed fiscal 2023 budget. The board sent a letter on Friday to Gov. Pedro Pierluisi rejecting the budget he submitted on March 16, and two separate letters to Juan Zaragoza Gómez, Senate Finance Committee president, rejecting three Senate bills relating to firefighters

The Government Employees Retirement System of the Virgin Islands is preparing a lawsuit against the financially struggling Water and Power Authority for about $7.7 million in past due money. At issue are past due employees’ and employer’s contributions and employees’ loans as well interest on these sums. WAPA has failed to forward the employee and