Municipals ended the week quieter than they began it with a mostly steady to firmer tone in spots Friday, outperforming U.S. Treasuries, which saw small losses. Equities were mixed at the close. Tax-exempt yields have moved higher with Treasuries, but outperformed on the whole, while municipal to UST ratios have been “largely moving sideways” in

The honeymoon phase for environmental, social and governance considerations in the municipal market is beginning to wane, giving way to a more thorough and dynamic vision for how issuers and market participants can deal with the hotly-politicized concpept. ESG was building steam before the pandemic, but has now become so overly-politicized that banks, underwriters and

Employee-owned international broker-dealer Baird has launched a California Public Finance group and hired veteran banker John Baracy as a managing director to run it and be the California K-12 market lead. “It’s been a market we wanted to expand in just given the size of the California economy,” said Brian Brewer, Baird’s director of public

The direction of interest rates will have the greatest impact on the municipal bond market this year, according to a vote taken at The Bond Buyer’s 2024 National Outlook Conference in Manhattan on Thursday. Almost three quarters of respondents, 72%, said interest rates would have the most significant effect on the public finance industry in

The Internal Revenue Service has informed the Port of Port Arthur Navigation District of Jefferson County, Texas that the tax-exempt status of a 2017 $55 million bond issuance remains unresolved, months after the district initially disclosed that the IRS was casting doubt on the tax-exempt status of the bonds. The notice came via a notice on

Municipals were steady to a touch firmer in spots Thursday, more new-issues saw strong demand while small outflows returned to muni mutual funds. U.S. Treasuries were weaker, and equities ended up. After four weeks of inflows into muni mutual funds, outflows returned, with LSEG Lipper reporting $121.1 million of outflows for the week ending Wednesday

Ex-IFS Securities trader Keith Wakefield committed securities and wire fraud when, as the broker-dealer’s head of fixed income, the Chicago resident made forbidden speculative trades and embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars over a two-year period, an Illinois federal court jury found this week. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of

An active primary market was the focus Wednesday with the New York City TFA pricing for institutions with small changes to yields from its Tuesday retail offering, Massachusetts upsizing its GO refunding deal and Wisconsin selling green bonds in the competitive market. Triple-A muni yield curves were mostly little changed to a basis point of