Bonds

The indictment of former Puerto Rico Gov. Wanda Vázquez on bribery charges damages the reputation of her political party, according to some analysts, but since her party is the only one advocating statehood for the island, the pain may be limited. Still, the arrest should have no impact on how long the Puerto Rico Oversight

The Senate is set to take action Saturday on a newly inked budget reconciliation bill that continues to lack municipal market priorities but includes climate and energy provisions that issuers support. Under a deal struck to gain the vote of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., the bill now features a slightly revised 15% corporate minimum tax

The Federal Reserve is committed to cooling inflation and needs to raise interest rates to a little above 4% to ease demand, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester said. “We’re committed to getting inflation down” to the 2% target, which will require more rate increases, Mester said during an event hosted by the Economic

An Oklahoma regulatory official, who has raised concerns about the impact of the state’s first utility securitization bond sale on ratepayers, on Thursday called for an independent assessment of the pricing as three other deals are pending. Bob Anthony, one of three commissioners at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), continued to question the July 8

Harvey, Illinois,officials are working to overcome remaining hurdles to conduct a bond exchange offer that would remove its general obligation debt from default status and honor a legal consent agreement with a group of bondholders. The Chicago suburb’s City Council recently passed an ordinance authorizing up to $36.5 million of borrowing that paves the way

Municipals were mostly steady as mutual fund inflows topped $1 billion, while U.S. Treasuries were firmer in most spots and equities were mixed near the close. Investors poured $1.094 billion into municipal bond mutual funds in the latest week, versus the $236.491 million of inflows the week prior, per Refinitiv Lipper data reported Thursday. It

Sen. Pat Toomey is again demanding transparency by the Federal Reserve after learning the central bank withheld documents he and other Republicans sought related to former Fed nominee Sarah Bloom Raskin during her confirmation fight. “It’s hard not to see this as a gesture of contempt for the Senate,” Toomey, the top Republican on the

The sudden passing of Indiana Congresswoman Jackie Walorski and two of her staffers in a car accident Wednesday has caused an outpouring of grief among muni market advocates and representatives across the political aisle. A South Bend, Indiana native, Walorski was first elected to represent Indiana’s 2nd district in 2012 and served on the House

The next few months will be key for California’s embattled and costly high-speed train project as the agency overseeing the project works to assemble state and federal financing needed to complete the first leg. The California High-Speed Rail Authority may hit the market as soon as November with a fresh tranche of state-backed bonds. At

New York State is facing lower revenues and bigger budget gaps as the national economy takes a turn for the worse, according to the latest update released by the state Division of the Budget. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the first quarterly update to the fiscal 2023 enacted budget shows the national economic downturn has started to

Former Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida will return to the bond giant Pacific Investment Management Co. as global economic advisor following his exit from the central bank in January and the conclusion of an internal Fed probe into his personal trading, which found that he hadn’t broken any rules. At the Fed, Clarida —

Puerto Rico bankruptcy Judge Laura Taylor Swain approved the extension of mediation discussions for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority for the fourth time this year. Swain ordered the mediation to continue to at least Aug. 15, with the mediation team being given the authority to extend the mediation deadline until Sept. 9. In late

Municipals were weaker Wednesday, U.S. Treasuries were mixed and equities rallied. Muni-UST ratios were at 61% in five years, 79% in 10 years and 96% in 30 years, according to Refinitiv MMD’s 3 p.m. read. ICE Data Services had the five at 61%, the 10 at 83% and the 30 at 95% at a 3:30

While elevated expenses persist in battering not-for-profit hospital operating margins, the sector received one dose of good news this week as the federal government raised the Medicare payment rate for inpatient care. Hospitals can expect more than $2.6 billion of additional payments under the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ fiscal 2023 Hospital Inpatient Prospective

Voters in Orem, Utah, will decide whether to leave the state’s largest school district and create their own after the city council voted 4-3 Tuesday night to place the measure on the Nov. 8 ballot. But even with a new district, taxpayers in the northern Utah city would still be on the hook for about

Federal Reserve leaders pledged the central bank would continue an aggressive fight to cool an inflation rate that’s at a four-decade high, even if higher rates cause the risk of recession. St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard said he favors a strategy of “front-loading” big interest-rate hikes, and he wants to end the year

A congressional report about Federal Reserve employees providing confidential information to the Chinese government has been met with little fanfare in Washington. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, published the findings from his staff’s two-year investigation ahead of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting last week. The

The North Carolina Local Government Commission on Tuesday approved the city of Charlotte’s request to issue more than $1 billion of bonds and notes for infrastructure work. Charlotte had asked the LGC for approval to issue $535 million of revenue bonds to finance water, wastewater and sewer plants and lines. Part of the proceeds will

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s proposed amendment to its Rule G-14 on time of trade requirements would require all market participants to, absent an exception, report transactions no later than within one minute of time of trade. Rule G-14 currently requires transactions to be reported within 15 minutes and for those that were not exempt,

Federal Reserve officials said they want strong evidence that the hottest inflation in four decades is on a sustainable downward path before declaring victory in their fight against it. With consumer prices rising 9.1% in June from a year earlier, the Fed has “a long way to go” on reaching price stability around a 2%