Bonds

Issuers have had to become creative to derive interest cost savings in the years since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 eliminated the tax-exempt advanced refunding option. A clear successor has yet to emerge, but rising interest rates, falling prices and fluctuating relative value prompted issuers to consider tender offers as a way

Munis yields rose Thursday, following and outperforming a U.S. Treasury sell-off on the heels of strong-than-expected economic data. Equities ended down. Thursday’s “economic data offers the latest evidence that the U.S. economy is weathering the fastest rate hikes in a generation without much damage to the major gear-works of the economy,” said Wells Fargo Securities

The ongoing challenges faced by publicly-owned mass transit authorities are looming large as federal funding for COVID relief will start drying up in in 2024. Possible solutions to careening over the financial cliffs include raising taxes, raising fares, tapping future casino revenue, and instituting controversial congestion traffic plans.  “Just last week we unveiled our financial

Munis were steady to weaker in spots Wednesday, while U.S. Treasuries were firmer after the Fed hiked rates 25 basis points and signaled more may come this year. Equities ended the session in the red. The Fed just “delivered a 25bps hike and by holding firm to their data dependent rhetoric and are trying to

The cost of protecting U.S. infrastructure against climate change is costly — but the cost of doing nothing is higher. That was the message today from Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards and other witnesses who testified at a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the fiscal fallout from climate change. Louisiana is one of the states

Municipals were little changed in secondary trading Tuesday as the focus was on the primary where the state of Washington sold large general obligation bond deals ahead of the FOMC rates decision. Treasury yields rose a basis point or two throughout most of the curve and equities ended the session in the black. The two-year

A collection of muni market affinity groups are hosting their second annual summer mixer in August on the rooftop of Nixon Peabody’s downtown Los Angeles office. The event will be held Aug. 10 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Last summer’s inaugural event drew just north of 100 people, and they are hoping for a

Municipals were relatively steady throughout most of the curve Monday, while U.S. Treasuries were weaker and equities ended the session up. The two-year muni-to-Treasury ratio Monday was at 58%, the three-year at 60%, the five-year at 61%, the 10-year at 65% and the 30-year at 88%, according to Refinitiv MMD’s 3 p.m. read. ICE Data

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s executive board last week approved a $15.7 billion capital plan for 2023 to 2028. Approximately 60% of capital spending called for is “focused on improving the reliability and resiliency” of the existing infrastructure, MassDOT chief Gina Fiandaca wrote in an introduction to the plan, with an additional 23% going towards

The bond market was quiet to end the week, with munis and U.S. Treasuries little changed ahead of next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting. Equities were up near the close. The two-year muni-to-Treasury ratio Friday was at 59%, the three-year at 61%, the five-year at 62%, the 10-year at 65% and the 30-year at

Parties in a bankruptcy case involving a bond-financed Arizona participant sports venue objected to a motion to either appoint an independent Chapter 11 trustee or dismiss the case, arguing either move would be detrimental or premature. Legacy Cares, the venue’s owner, which filed for bankruptcy May 1 in Arizona federal court, along with bond trustee

State departments of transportation are breathing a sigh of relief after the Federal Highway Administration resolved the bulk of a nearly 20-year-old accounting glitch that threatened $3.5 billion of infrastructure funds. The resolution of $2.5 billion of the $3.5 billion discrepancy between two accounting systems used by the federal government frees up the money for

New Jersey sued the federal government to block a plan to charge drivers entering midtown Manhattan, claiming the green light the US gave New York’s congestion pricing proposal was ill-considered and missed numerous risks to Garden State residents. The challenge came Friday morning in a federal lawsuit the state filed against the US Department of Transportation and

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration for the next five years and granting $4 billion per fiscal year to the Airport Improvement Project. The bill, the Securing Growth and Robust Leadership in American Aviation Act, was passed in a 351-69 bipartisan vote, and will now move on to the Senate

BondWave LLC’s portfolio analytics suite, Effi, has introduced a new feature, Rules, where users can filter attributes of bonds in their portfolios.  Michael Ruvo, BondWave’s CEO, described Rules as an “overlay” to each portfolio, where users can apply criteria including 20 different portfolio constraints and almost 20 different objectives.  Through Rules, users can filter for

New Jersey Transit’s newly passed fiscal 2024 budget includes no new fare hikes and increased spending year-over-year, in the face of a looming fiscal cliff. NJ Transit’s board passed a $2.86 billion operating budget on Wednesday that’s 4.1% bigger than fiscal 2023’s, with 60% of costs associated with labor and fringe benefits and 31% linked

Munis were slightly weaker in spots, but triple-A yield curves largely ignored U.S. Treasury losses following the release of economic data that saw initial jobless claims fall below expectations. Equities ended mixed. Municipal bond mutual fund saw inflows return with Refinitiv Lipper on Thursday reporting investors added $1.040 billion to funds for the week ending

Munis continued to show strength Wednesday as several large new issues priced to good demand, with New York City Transitional Finance Authority seeing yields fall as much as of 14 basis points from Tuesday’s retail scales and Salt Lake City upsizing its deal. U.S. Treasuries improved and equities ended in the black. Triple-A yields were

Data standardization across the municipal market will likely take years and much discussion to pinpoint the issues and how the market can solve them. Some of the apparent problems were discussed at the Brookings Municipal Finance Conference where Marc Joffe, federalism and state policy analyst at the Cato Institute, presented his paper outlining them. “If

Municipals continued to improve Tuesday in constructive secondary trading while a retail pricing of $950 million for the New York City Transitional Finance Authority took focus in the primary. U.S. Treasuries were slightly firmer out long and equities rallied. Triple-A yields fell up to four basis points, depending on the curve, while U.S. Treasuries were