Bonds

Muni yields climbed even higher to end the week, while U.S. Treasuries were weaker and equities ended down. Muni yields, after outperforming USTs the prior week, “have adjusted higher in a hurry this week in sympathy with the UST selloff,” said Barclays strategists Mikhail Foux, Clare Pickering and Mayur Patel. Triple-A benchmark yields rose four

The federal government, five cities and California have struck an agreement they say will cut red tape at all levels of government to reduce homelessness more quickly. The cities selected to participate in the program — Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, Seattle — along with California, are home to nearly half of the nation’s homeless

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a clear signal he is inclined to pausing interest-rate increases next month and said that tighter credit conditions could mean the policy peak will be lower. “We’ve come a long way in policy tightening and the stance of policy is restrictive and we face uncertainty about the lagged effects

Terri Velasquez is ending her term as president of the Government Finance Officers Association with a full year of accomplishments. Representing the city of Aurora, Colorado the 20-year GFOA veteran brought a toolkit full of policy innovation and technology solutions to a grateful organization.  Velasquez came into the presidency with a complete set of goals, some

California’s rating outlook was revised to negative from stable Thursday by Moody’s Investors Service amid the state’s revenue uncertainty. The rating agency also affirmed the Aa2 rating on the state’s general obligation bonds, citing the state’s massive economic base and healthy budget reserves and liquidity. The Aa2 rating on the state’s general obligation bonds is

Municipals experienced further pressure Thursday, with the triple-A benchmarks inside 10 years being hit the hardest. Short-term U.S. Treasury yields extended their selloff, and equities ended mixed. Triple-Amunicipal yields were cut 10 to 15 basis points, depending on the scale, 10 years and in. UST yields rose three to 12 basis points. Municipal to UST

Walt Disney Co., embroiled in a high-profile fight with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is closing a luxury hotel at Walt Disney World and dropping plans to relocate 2,000 California employees to a new corporate campus it was building in the state. The Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, a pet project of former Chief Executive Officer Bob

Chicago hotel taxes pledged to repay Soldier Field renovation bonds will fall $9 million short of what’s needed for debt service this year, leaving the city on the hook for a second year to cover the gap as tax receipts continue to lag pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. A current refunding is expected next year using existing

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan said the case for pausing interest rate increases at the central bank’s June meeting isn’t yet clear, while her colleague Gov, Philip Jefferson sounded ready to be patient. “After raising the target range for the federal funds rate at each of the last 10 FOMC meetings, we

Guaynabo, Puerto Rico-based X-Square Capital plans to launch an exchange-traded fund of primarily Puerto Rico restructured municipal bonds Friday. The X-Square Municipal Tax Income Free ETF will be the first Puerto Rico ETF and the first triple-tax exempt ETF in U.S. history. The fund will have 80% of its holdings in Puerto Rico bonds and

As a gusher of federal funding rains down on local governments, challenges and solutions are emerging from the front lines. According to Tampa, Florida Mayor Jane Castor, speaking during a Brookings Institution panel discussion on Thursday in Washington, the city has 31 miles of drinking water pipeline under construction. It also has 34 miles in design

California school districts are delaying projects or speeding them up to get ahead of accelerating prices as they contend with supply challenges and rising construction costs. “By and large, inflationary pressures on construction costs is where they are getting hit the worst,” said Blake Boehm, a managing director with KNN Public Finance, a municipal advisory

With a $2.5 billion bet on the line, Nuveen is touting its upbeat outlook on a Florida-based Brightline passenger train that other investors view skeptically. Nuveen has “been involved with this credit since 2015,” said Ryan Rosberg, managing director and senior research analyst at Nuveen, and “we think it’s going to be a complete success.”

Issuers, if they’re not already doing so, will soon have to pay much more to supply water to their constituents, turning to ever more inventive ways of procuring and treating water as fresh water supplies run down. That was the focus of one of the panels at the National Federation of Municipal Analysts’ 2023 Annual

The Chicago Transit Authority’s CFO said he’s encouraged by “positive momentum” from talks with Illinois lawmakers to boost state funding for the agency’s operating budget ahead of a looming fiscal cliff. “All the conversations we’ve had to date with state legislators have been very positive,” said CTA CFO Jeremy Fine, speaking Tuesday at an “Innovations in

Gerard “Jerry” Fernandez, Jr., a municipal bond attorney who spent nearly 67 years at Hawkins, Delafield & Woods LLP, and was known as an innovator in the public finance industry, died April 21 at the age of 93. After serving in the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant (JG) in the Pacific during World War II,

Short-term munis sold off Wednesday, as triple-A benchmarks rose in sympathy with U.S. Treasuries. Equities rallied. Muni yields rose seven to 12 basis points five years in, while USTs rose two to eight basis points. Performance-wise, Matthew Buscone, co-head of portfolio management at Breckinridge Capital Advisors, said the muni market has been soft this week.

State and local government leaders are coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and looking at their investments in infrastructure in ways that not only satisfy their bottom line today, but set them up for the future. That’s according to panelists at the 2023 National Federation of Municipal Analysts Annual Conference Wednesday, where panelists took the

Harvey, Illinois, expects to launch a long-planned tender exchange offer to general obligation bondholders next month that would shed the bonds’ default status, resolve longstanding investor litigation, and give the fiscally troubled Chicago suburb more time to make good on its debts. The city this month posted a City Council-approved ordinance, trust indenture and other

The Puerto Rico Oversight Board asked District Court Judge Laura Taylor to dismiss Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bondholders’ remaining legal arguments, which would ease the path to approval of its current proposed plan of adjustment. The arguments, if accepted, would mean a bigger payout for bondholders. Swain addressed two of the bondholders’ arguments in

Tempe voters rejected a $2.1 billion proposed entertainment district that included a hockey arena for the Arizona Coyotes and relied on bond financing to clean up a landfill on the site of the development.  A three-part proposition the Tempe City Council required the team to place on the ballot lost with each measure getting only