Bonds

The secondary muni market was dislocated Friday with high-grade block trading showing swings in yields and rate volatility and price discovery remain problematic for investors and issuers alike. After a week of large issuers bringing sizable deals, Friday did not fully commit to a more stabilized muni market. The news out of Washington did not

Cook County, Illinois, is bracing for a $200 million tax blow due to the economic shutdown brought about by COVID-19, the county’s finance team said Friday. That doesn’t account for an additional $60 million to $75 million whack to health system revenues, though some of that is expected to be reimbursed with hospital-related federal relief.

The next COVID-19 federal relief package should direct aid to municipalities to help replace lost revenue and smaller cities should receive a share, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday. While a series of packages have provided help on the expense side of dealing with the pandemic including the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act

Wisconsin drew 15 bids and new investor interest on its first green-designated bonds as it stepped into a growing primary market Wednesday with $80 million of its triple-A state revolving fund bonds. Barclays submitted the winning bid on the competitive sale with a true interest cost of 2.64%. The cover bid came from Morgan Stanley

Trading in the secondary market saw AAA benchmark yields rise by three to five basis points but the primary market showed signs of life with several larger new deals getting done at appropriate levels given current market conditions as the coronavirus continues to ravage state and local credit quality. The municipal market weakened a little

As California and America look forward to relaxing restrictions, it’s time to look ahead to meeting the onrushing financial crisis. The coronavirus has created such a massive disruption to the world’s stock markets that almost all California public employee defined-benefit pension plans will never recover. At a minimum, they must be put on a fiscal

House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D- Calif., wants the Federal Reserve to increase the parameters of its short-term note program and extend help to the secondary market. In a letter sent to Fed Chair Jerome Powell Thursday night, Waters said though the Fed’s Municipal Liquidity Facility helps provide liquidity to states and local

The Illinois Regional Transportation Authority plans to raise its short-term borrowing to help manage liquidity as the agency awaits federal help that should offset an expected $958 million blow to tax and farebox revenues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We were originally going to do $150 million, but given the COVID situation we decided to

The municipal market was mostly quiet Friday as participants came off a week of a strong rally, an awakened new-issue market and the first fund inflows since February as they cautiously await another week with more deals on tap and continued questions of support out of Washington. Triple A benchmarks showed slight weakness with most

Illinois now carries three ratings at the lowest rung of investment grade after Fitch Ratings downgraded the state Thursday. Fitch cut the state’s issuer default and general obligation ratings by one level to BBB-minus from BBB, and also lowered its outlook to negative from stable, signaling its poor view of the state’s ability to weather

Illinois needs to close a $2.7 billion revenue gap this year and must dig its way out of an up to $7.4 billion hole in the next fiscal year due to plunging revenues blamed on the coronavirus-driven shutdown of many businesses. “This is a public health crisis but it is accompanied by massive economic disruption

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the state will provide more information about the budgetary impact of COVID-19 later this week as the state struggles with rising costs and lost tax revenue due to the pandemic. Pritzker has not offered any spending and revenue projections to date and it’s unclear exactly what will be announced later

New Jersey’s rating outlook was revised to negative from stable Monday by Moody’s Investors Service, which affirmed its A3 rating on the state’s GO debt. “The affirmation of New Jersey’s ratings and revision of the outlook to negative from stable reflects the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the state and our expectation that the

The municipal market rallied Thursday, with yields declining at least 10 basis points across the curve against a backdrop of the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would purchase up to $500 billion of short-term municipal notes. While the announcement signaled the Fed would prop up short-term munis, long-term bonds are not going to be a

Nuveen Investments unlawfully waged a campaign to pressure banks and broker-dealers to boycott Preston Hollow Capital LLC’s direct lending business as the two competed for high-yield deals, a judge concluded Thursday. The long-awaited decision in Dallas-based PHC’s 2019 lawsuit accusing the Chicago-based investment powerhouse of defamation, anti-trust, and unlawful business interference sided with PHC in

Chicago won’t dip into asset reserves or push off a pension funding ramp to compensate for the COVID-19 economic hit, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday. “We want to make sure we come out of this experience as strong as possible. What we don’t want to do is something that shrinks government” or undercuts “the city’s

The coronavirus pandemic continues to take a rating toll on Illinois as Moody’s Investors Service Thursday revised its outlook to negative from stable. The revision affects Baa3-rated Illinois general obligation debt and sales tax backed Build Illinois bonds, which are already on the lowest investment-grade rating. Also shifted to negative are the junk-level Ba1 ratings

Detroit is projecting a $100 million deficit in its current budget and painful cuts loom once the public health crisis caused by COVID-19 eases, Mayor Mike Duggan said. “We are going to run a deficit of more than $100 million in this fiscal year that ends June 30. We’ve run balanced budgets year in and

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has signed into law a $10 billion transportation plan designed to maintain the state’s highways while supporting jobs in an economic downturn. Senate Bill 173 won legislative approval last month as lawmakers were rushing to finish their work on the state budget so they could clear out of Topeka during the

Oklahoma lawmakers on Monday granted Gov. Kevin Stitt extraordinary power to bypass state laws in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Meeting in a special session Stitt called last week, the Legislature enacted the Catastrophic Health Emergency Powers Act that allows Stitt to waive statutory and regulatory requirements and redirect state agency or state employee efforts

New York lawmakers approved a state budget Thursday with mechanisms for spending reductions throughout the year because of the economic headwinds caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The adopted $177 billion budget includes an initial $95.8 billion of state operating spending, $10 billion less than Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s January proposal. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is

Municipal bond yields fell more than 15 basis points Friday, gaining back a portion of the pronounced losses from the past two sessions. The market is settling into what appears to be sustained volatility after more than a month of dramatic swings in yields. In what used to be considered a normally functioning market, a

Rating agencies and investors don’t share Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s confidence that the city is well-positioned to manage the potentially deep fiscal wounds COVID-19 might inflict. “I think we are very well situated,” Lightfoot has said. “We obviously did modeling and thinking about the potential for an economic downturn but the bottom line is it’s

Yields in the municipal market rose by as much as 10 basis points Thursday as selling pressure emerged on the short end of the curve following Wednesday’s 50-plus basis point sell-off. In the primary, few deals were done, though Milwaukee sold $160.825 general obligation promissory notes and GO corporate purpose bonds to Citi. Before the

Another large wave of selling hit the market on Wednesday, with yields rising by more than a half percentage point on the long end, amid defensive bidding reminiscent of the mid-March sell-off. March’s volatility has led to some of the widest price swings the market has seen since benchmark data was created and it continues

The NCAA, after canceling winter and spring championships that include its lucrative “March Madness” men’s basketball tournament, was hit with a negative outlook. Moody’s Investors Service lowered its outlook on the organization’s Aa2 rating to negative from stable March 23.. S&P Global Ratings rates the Indianapolis-based organization AA, outlook stable. The organization has roughly $9.6

Yields in the municipal market declined slightly Monday as new-issue market showed some signs of activity. Municipal credit is beginning to emerge as more of an investing consideration as the market deals with the coronavirus-led selloff and subsequent Fed-led rebound. These moves are starting to make participants pick winners and losers from a credit perspective

The Wisconsin Center District may move forward with a vote April 2 on a borrowing plan for the $420 million expansion of Milwaukee’s convention center in order to be ready to jump into the market should market and city hurdles clear up. “Removing the expansion vote from the agenda in light of the issues we

Puerto Rico bankruptcy Judge Laura Taylor Swain on Friday ordered the postponement of deadlines in the central government bankruptcy. The Puerto Rico Oversight Board, citing the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the island and involved lawyers, asked for the postponement on Sunday. Puerto Rico bankruptcy Judge Laura Taylor Swain has delayed some parts of