Bonds

Kroll Bond Rating Agency raised its outlook on Chicago’s general obligation bonds to stable from negative and affirmed the city’s GO rating at A. “The stable outlook assignment and the outlook revision on the outstanding GO bonds recognizes the tenor of actions taken by the city’s management in confronting COVID-19 induced challenges, an improved revenue

Fitch Ratings has downgraded the San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit District to AA from AA-plus. The rating agency also maintained its negative outlook at the lower rating. Fitch’s action Thursday affects BART’s issuer default rating and $686 million in taxable sales tax revenue bonds. The agency had just shy of $2 billion of long-term

Municipals were unmoved in light trading to start the last week of August while U.S. Treasuries maintained Friday’s levels and equities advanced on news the FDA gave the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine full approval. Municipal benchmark yield curves continued to hold steady for the seventh day as investors await a diverse primary that includes gilt-edged Montgomery

Filmmakers working in North Carolina are on track to have a $409 million economic impact on the state’s finances this year, Gov. Roy Cooper said Thursday. These investments are on track to be the biggest since the creation of the state’s Film and Entertainment Grant program in 2014, Cooper said, during a press conference at

Northeast municipal issuers sold $59.9 billion of debt over the first six months of this year, up 4.8% from the same period of 2020 as states, cities and agencies adjusted to the COVID-19 environment and other variables. That included a 13.3% spike in the first quarter, to $29.5 billion from $26 billion. Many traditional issuers,

Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said he’s open to adjusting his view that the Federal Reserve should start tapering its asset-purchase program sooner rather than later if the Delta variant persists and hurts economic progress. The Fed is currently buying $80 billion per month in Treasuries and $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities in an effort

Leaders of California’s high-speed rail project have not given up on garnering additional federal funds to pay for the slow-moving project that is supposed to link the state’s major cities. High-speed rail, championed by President Joe Biden on the campaign trail, was shunted to the sideline in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package. Brian Kelly, chief

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole gathering, which was due to be held in person Aug. 26-28, is now shifting to a virtual format, the bank announced Friday. The regional Fed bank said it was making the move “due to the recently elevated COVID-19 health risk level in Teton County, Wyoming.”

The tax-exempt market languished through a quiet summer Friday as municipals finished unchanged for the sixth straight trading session. IHS Ipreo estimates supply for the upcoming week at $7.04 billion. The week’s supply is composed of $5.36 billion of negotiated deals and $1.68 billion of competitive sales. Breaking it down, Refinitiv MMD calculated the tax-exempt

Some members of the Puerto Rico Oversight Board want to reach a “grand bargain” with the local legislature to complete Puerto Rico’s debt deals. Both the Puerto Rico House of Representatives and Senate have voted overwhelmingly in favor of measures declaring they would not approve any bonds for a Plan of Adjustment that cut pensions

HilltopSecurities has hired two key financial services leaders from Piper Sandler for its public finance division in Florida and Minnesota. John Pellicci, former managing director at Piper Sandler, will serve as senior managing director, head of municipal high yield underwriting and sales at Hilltop. Yaffa Rattner, also formerly managing director at Piper Sandler, joined Hilltop

Investors digested three mammoth deals of $1 billion or more in the primary market on a heavy day of issuance as municipals remained unchanged, Treasuries were mostly steady, and more than $2.5 billion flowed into long-term municipal bonds. The primary market activity was brisk Tuesday as all eyes turned to the Federal Open Market Committee’s

States could provide twice as many 4% low-income housing tax credits without being further constrained by their private-activity bond caps under legislation introduced that could be included in the budget resolution package. Sen. Ron Wyden the Oregon Democrat who chairs the Senate’s powerful Finance Committee, announced the Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All (DASH) Act

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear talks with Chip Barnett about economic progress the Commonwealth has made this year and how the state-local government partnership strengthened during the pandemic. He describes the heartbreaking human cost of the virus, the deadly toll it took on residents and why the Delta variant is a continuing cause of concern. (14

Automatic transfers into Illinois’ meager budget reserve and empty pension stabilization fund would kick in when the state holds its unpaid bill backlog below $3 billion at fiscal year close under legislation Comptroller Susana Mendoza is promoting. Illinois’ budget stabilization fund held just $9 million last week — enough to cover just 30 minutes of

Chicago must close a $733 million gap in its next budget as it looks to federal relief and savings from a $1 billion refunding to balance the books this year after scrapping scoop-and-toss plans. “While we still have hard work ahead of us in order to close this gap, this figure is a great indication

California’s housing crisis has propelled a community college to issue junk bonds to fund housing for its students. Lead manager Stifel priced $68.3 million in college housing revenue bonds for the California School Finance Authority on July 15 to support the project at Santa Rosa Junior College. Santa Rosa Junior College is the first community

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George said the central bank needs to move ahead with reducing monetary stimulus, citing expectations for continued labor-market gains. “Now, with the recovery underway, a transition from extraordinary monetary policy accommodation to more neutral settings must follow,” George said in the text of a virtual speech to

The curve steepening continued Thursday with a steady tone inside 10-years and pressure on bonds outside there forced another session of one to two basis point cuts to benchmark yield curves as U.S. Treasury yields also rose and equities were mixed. Triple-A benchmarks have the 10-year at 0.90%-0.91% and the 30-year at 1.48%-1.50%. With the

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will let municipal advisor principals take the Series 54 qualification exam online and file for an extension of the deadline to pass that test after advisors said they were unsettled by news of COVID-19 exposure at a testing site. The MSRB posted a notice Wednesday afternoon saying it is working