Bonds

Municipals were little changed on light trading in the secondary again Wednesday as Illinois and Texas priced bonds in the primary and the Investment Company Institute reported another round of billion-dollar-plus inflows. The Investment Company Institute reported $1.325 billion of inflows for the week ending Sept. 8, following $1.804 billion of inflows the prior week,

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot tapped San Antonio, Texas, school superintendent Pedro Martinez — a former Chicago Public Schools fiscal chief — to lead the district as fiscal and governance change looms. Lightfoot introduced Martinez as the new chief executive officer at a news conference Wednesday. Martinez is the first Latino to hold the CEO position

The government of Guam has settled on a $937 million budget for fiscal 2022, which starts Oct. 1. Gov. Lourdes “Lou” Guerrero on Saturday said she would let the budget go into effect without her signature. The legislature transmitted the budget to her on Aug. 31. The budget includes $623.6 million of total General Fund

The municipal primary was the focus Tuesday with large deals repricing to lower yields while the secondary market took a backseat with benchmark curves little changed even as U.S. Treasuries rallied and stocks sold off. Triple-A benchmarks saw a basis point bump in spots while U.S. Treasury yields fell five basis points on the 10-

On the heels of Minnesota’s recent $876 million deal, the state’s public university system heads into the market this week with a deal that offers investors a range of paper to pick from, including a sustainability-certified bond. The Regents of the University of Minnesota will bring a $127 million refunding on Tuesday and follow with

Municipals were little changed ahead of a $10 billion-plus new-issue week as California offered $2 billion of general obligation bonds to retail investors and the market considered the municipal bond provisions offered from Washington. Triple-A benchmarks reported steady levels while U.S. Treasuries improved and equities also improved. “The municipal market is relatively unchanged and not

Municipals were little changed, underperforming a U.S. Treasury rate reversal from Wednesday as all eyes were on the primary with Minnesota selling $897 million of general obligation bonds to strong reception. Triple-A benchmarks were unmoved while the 10-year UST fell four basis points and the 30-year five. As such, ratios rose slightly with the 10-year

First of two parts Visceral memories of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City — and more positively, the response from the capital markets — linger 20 years later. The anniversary comes as the city is trying to emerge from a newer crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, generational

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the release of $2.75 billion to support the state’s Homekey project Thursday. The program provides money to local governments to build permanent supportive housing for unhoused people. It’s estimated the additional funding could build up to 14,000 housing units for people exiting homelessness, said Newsom, who called it the largest

Almost two dozen amicus briefs have been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the past 10 days in favor of granting Supplemental Security Income benefits to Puerto Ricans and other territorial residents, with oral arguments set for Nov. 8. Providing the payments would mean an additional $1 billion in federal transfers to Puerto Ricans

Municipal bonds were little changed, ignoring another reversal in U.S. Treasuries on Friday ahead of a larger-than-average $10 billion-plus calendar led by California, Texas and New York issuers. Triple-A benchmarks were unmoved again Friday while the 10-year UST rose four basis points and the 30-year four. As such, ratios fell slightly with the 10-year muni-to-Treasury

VanEck launched a municipal exchange-traded fund with a sustainability designation, the first ETF of its kind in the municipal space. The VanEck HIP Sustainable Municipal fund, SMI ticker, introduced Friday, is an actively managed fund focusing on investment-grade state and local government debt that funds projects promoting sustainable development, including affordable housing, green spaces and

The presidents of the Federal Reserve banks of Boston and Dallas said Thursday they would sell their individual stock holdings by Sept. 30 and invest the proceeds in diversified index funds or hold them in cash. The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve buildingBloomberg News Eric Rosengren, head of the Boston Fed, and Robert Kaplan, president

Two Chicago area not-for-profit health providers — NorthShore University HealthSystem and Edward-Elmhurst Health — will join forces to form a nine-hospital system. Warrenville-based Edward-Elmhurst operates three hospitals west of Chicago — Edward Hospital in Naperville, Elmhurst Hospital in Elmhurst and a behavioral facility located on Edward’s campus. Edward and Elmhurst hospitals merged in 2013 to

Title: Director Public Finance — Credit StrategyFirm: Wells FargoAge: 39 Kristen Fontana always had an affinity for the policy side of public finance. After dipping her toes into public finance with an internship at an investment bank during the financial crisis, she decided to go back to school for a graduate degree. There, Kristen said,

ICE Data Services has acquired Andrew Kalotay Associates to enhance its fixed income analytics, bringing Kalotay’s proprietary software to ICE’s network of data, analytics and execution services for municipal bonds and other fixed-income securities. Kalotay Analytics has provided high-speed, high-precision software for fixed-income market participants for more than three decades. It includes quantitative real-time pricing

Melissa Norcia was appointed the chief administrative officer for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System on Tuesday. Norcia starts September 15 and replaces Lisa Blatnick, who became CalSTRS chief operating officer in August. CalSTRS was established by law in 1913 to provide retirement benefits to California’s public school educators from prekindergarten through community college. Today,

Recent severe weather events — hurricanes, wildfires, and droughts — coupled with the effects of COVID-19 underscore the growing urgency for the public finance industry to adapt to changing conditions and update and build infrastructure to withstand their effects. While congressional Democrats are working toward a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package that will be heavy

Chicago’s finance team dug in this week on it plan to scrap $950 million of scoop-and-toss borrowing amid pushback from council members who want the city to put more federal COVID-19 pandemic relief toward social investments. Several council members pressed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s finance team to consider some limited form of debt restructuring to free

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi asked the bankruptcy judge to pause an Oversight Board suit against a law the board says would scuttle the Plan of Adjustment. Pierluisi’s lawyers filed the request with Judge Laura Taylor Swain Wednesday evening in an adversary proceeding part of the bankruptcy. Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, left, argued that

The catastrophic remnants of Hurricane Ida snuck up on Northeast states Wednesday, catching officials and the general population off-guard. But such a storm, still delivering massive amounts of rain more than 1,300 miles from its Louisiana landfall, is no outlier, one New Jersey climate official warned. “It may be a different animal, as you put

California received an outlook boost to positive from S&P Global Ratings as the state prepares to sell more than $2 billion of general obligation bonds. The deal will land the week of a Sept. 14 recall election targeting Gov. Gavin Newsom. But California’s surplus and budgetary changes that occurred after the 2008 economic crash will

Jennifer Fredericks joined Ice Miller LLP last month to take on the newly created role of director of business development for public finance. Fredericks left Bank of New York Mellon, where she was a vice president of business development for the corporate trust group, to take the Ice Miller position. At BNY Mellon she led

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to extend the deadline to pass the Series 54 exam two weeks to Nov. 30, 2021, from the previous date of Nov. 12. The extension comes, as promised, shortly after the agency began offering remote examinations following news that a municipal

The municipal market was little changed on Friday as a disappointing August jobs number punctuated an otherwise lackluster day of light trading activity ahead of the Labor Day holiday. Trading fell to a trickle at about $2.1 billion near the close and triple-A benchmarks were unmoved, outperforming a cheaper U.S. Treasury market which saw the

In a prolonged low-interest-rate environment, many issuers may have paid little heed to arbitrage on bond proceeds. But that could change, and municipal advisors and bond counsel are staying vigilant on their clients’ behalf. “Declining interest rates make it generally easier to manage arbitrage,” said Adam Harden, partner at Locke Lord in Texas. “Post-issuance compliance

The municipal market traded sideways and activity was muted on Thursday as U.S. Treasuries were steady and equities in the black ahead of the much-anticipated employment report to be released Friday. Refinitiv Lipper reported $1.044 billion of inflows into municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending Sept. 1, down from the $1.9 billion a

Widespread Puerto Rico power outages this week are highlighting the extended age of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s infrastructure and its impact on the economy. The outages affected 33% to 37% of the authority’s customers since Monday and will continue to afflict many for a few more days, according to PREPA. Demand has been

Municipal trading dropped 25% on Wednesday after an already very slow few days in the secondary, leaving municipal benchmark yields little changed, as U.S. Treasuries also held steady and most participants began checking out for the holiday weekend. For the 25th week in a row, municipal bond mutual funds saw inflows of nearly $2 billion,

St. Louis’ multi-year trend of surpluses garnered an upgrade from Moody’s Investors Service that reverses a trend of downgrades from the rating agency. Moody’s raised the city’s general obligation rating to A3 with a stable outlook from Baa1 Monday. The St. Louis Municipal Corp.’s lease appropriation debt for essential purposes rose to Baa1 from Baa2