Bonds

In his new role as a municipal market specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Little said he’s focused on gathering market intelligence from as broad a range of municipal market participants as possible and is keeping a particular eye on ESG bonds. Little gave an overview Monday at the Government Finance

State and local governments are poised to withstand some of the Omicron-related economic damages thanks to more robust rainy day funds and billions of unspent federal aid, industry experts believe. “It’s continuing, unfortunately, and we’re in the middle of another surge right now,” said Eric Kim, senior director at Fitch Ratings, at the Volcker Alliance

Justin Brannan will head the New York City Council Finance Committee, Speaker Adrienne Adams announced. “My charge is to make sure we are spending wisely, safeguarding our city’s financial future, and fortifying the city’s social safety net for New Yorkers who need it most,” Brannan, a hardcore punk rocker before turning to politics, said when

Puerto Rico bankruptcy Judge Laura Taylor Swain approved qualifying modifications to Puerto Rico Infrastructure and Finance Authority and Convention Center District Authority debt that included deep cuts to outstanding bonds. Swain issued her orders and findings of fact and conclusions of law on Thursday, affecting $1.9 billion of PRIFA bonds and $384 million of CCDA

The White House is urging cities and towns to set up infrastructure coordinators to take advantage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu, speaking Friday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting, said local officials should appoint advisors and task forces to coordinate with state and federal agencies

The University of Michigan’s healthy balance sheet puts it in a strong fiscal position to manage the cost of a $490 million legal settlement for abuse allegations against a former sports doctor, but it’s too early to assess whether its top ratings will escape future fallout. Rating agency analysts will have their eye on more

Maryland’s beleaguered Purple Line light rail project is set to tap the market with up to $700 million of private activity bonds marking a fresh round of financing to restart the long-delayed public private partnership. Purple Line Transit Partners, the private concessionaire overseeing the project, is poised to price the PABs in “coming weeks” as

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve released a long-awaited report examining the potential ramifications of issuing a digital version of the U.S. dollar, saying it would not create one without a clear directive from elected officials. The 40-page report, released Thursday, coincides with a request for feedback from the Fed on the impact of a hypothetical

Industry advocacy groups urged the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board to remain flexible and avoid creating new compliance standards in resources regarding new issue pricing. The comments, which were submitted Wednesday by four organizations, stemmed from the MSRB’s October request for comment on two draft resources regarding new issue pricing. One of the draft resources is

Municipals faced another weaker day with benchmark yield curves seeing two to four basis point cuts, underperforming a slightly better U.S. Treasury market, while equities ended in the red. Munis played catch up to the large selloff in Treasuries since Friday, holding municipal to UST ratios steady. The five-year was at 54%, 68% in 10

One of the first things Glenn Youngkin did after being sworn in as Virginia’s new governor was to address the Joint Assembly Monday to outline his vision for the state over the next year. On Saturday, his first day in office, Youngkin, a Republican, signed a slew of executive orders and directives at the state

U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain approved the Plan of Adjustment for Puerto Rico’s central government bonds and obligations Tuesday afternoon, setting the stage for the commonwealth to exit bankruptcy after more than four years of intense negotiations over its massive debts. The action sets the restructuring terms for about $33 billion of debts

Aoifinn Devitt, chief investment officer at Moneta Group, discusses the Federal Reserve’s plans to raise rates this year, whether this was truly a pivot in Fed thinking, how the market reacted to this change and will how they will respond when rates go up, how new members on the Federal Reserve Board could impact Fed

In 2021, the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York overtook the state of California for the top spot. New York City, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Ohio Buckeye Tobacco Financing Authority, the New York Urban Development Corp., New Jersey and Massachusetts were ousted from the top 10 in 2021. All the

The top municipal underwriters accounted for $456.44 billion in 11,808 transactions for 2021 compared to $451.24 billion in 11,849 deals in 2020. BofA Securities led with $62.01 billion of deals. Out of the top five, only BofA Securities and Morgan Stanley increased market share year-over-year. Stifel Nicolas & Co. moved into the top 10, while

North Idaho College had its outlook revised to negative by Moody’s after management turmoil, including the firing of its president, put the accreditation of the two-year college at risk. If the two-year college loses accreditation, credits students received for completed classes would not be eligible to transfer to a university. Loss of accreditation could put

The Internal Revenue Service has revised its Form 8038-CP to facilitate electronic filing, which will be out later this year. “The January 2022 revisions simplifies the filing process for issuers when providing certain explanations and supplemental information,” the IRS said in an instructional video introducing the new form. “Additionally, revisions to the form were needed

Local officials Friday hailed the U.S. Department of Transportation’s rollout of a nearly $28 billion bridge program that highlights spending on smaller, local bridges across the country. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides $40 billion in funding for bridges over the next five years, including $27.5 billion in the Bridge Formula Program. The program

Chicago Public Schools’ $872 million of junk-rated paper met with a more fickle high-yield audience this week, underscoring the district’s vulnerability to market volatility even as it inches closer to investment grade status. At attractive spreads that offered a healthy yield kick with many maturities offering 4% coupons, the bonds were 2.2 times oversubscribed, CPS

Municipals ended the week steady to slightly weaker in spots, even as U.S. Treasuries sold off and equities ended mixed on inflation concerns and more hawkish Fed speak. Municipal yields have risen in response to Treasuries, but were mostly unmoved by Friday’s selloff, again lagging taxable counterparts as munis are wont to do on a