Bonds

Cruise ship ports in the U.S. may see some light at the end of the tunnel after more than a year without any departures because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines a path to resuming some U.S. cruises in July, though the evolving situation will continue

Municipals improved Tuesday on the backs of a strong primary led by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s $788 million green bonds and gilt-edged Loudoun County, Virginia, and the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank, which sold competitively with tight spreads. Triple-A municipal benchmark yield curves were bumped one to two basis points, lagging a four basis

Municipal bond issuers would be drawn into a widely-cast net of beefed-up tax enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service under legislation proposed Monday by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The Restoring the IRS Act of 2021 would triple the IRS annual budget to $31.5 billion and make its funding mandatory rather than part of the annual

Raphael Bostic, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president, says he hears frequent speculation that he could be nominated to lead the central bank. “I hear about it all the time,” Bostic said, according to an Axios account of the outlet’s interview on Axios on HBO. President Joe Biden hasn’t indicated who he will name, but

WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee is slamming three Federal Reserve banks for their work to examine the role racism plays in the economy. In letters to the Fed regional bank presidents in Atlanta, Boston and Minneapolis, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., argued that a focus on racial justice is outside of

Red flags waved as Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza proposed issuing $704 million in pension obligation bonds to deal with a pestering unfunded liability problem in Rhode Island’s capital city. The amount exceeds the city’s annual operating budget. Bond markets often frown on such borrowing and sentiment among state officials who must sign off is uncertain.

Nicholas Falgione, 55, of Wexford, Pa., a longtime municipal banker and managing director at PNC Capital Markets, died on May 12 after a three-year battle with liver cancer. He joined PNC in 2013 as a managing director based in Pittsburgh as part of the expansion of the firm’s public finance teams in Pennsylvania and Florida.

Municipal bonds were little changed Friday ahead of a $7 billion holiday-shortened week — led by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s $800 million-plus green bond deal — as investors head into the last week before the June reinvestment season begins. There are 19 deals larger than $100 million in a mixture of credits that

The Federal Reserve should get a conversation going on tapering its bond-purchase program “sooner rather than later,” Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said, adding his voice to a growing minority of U.S. central bank officials signaling the process should begin sometime soon. “It is something that, in my mind, we should start to have a

Factors pushing U.S. inflation higher are likely to ebb at the start of 2022, said Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly. “There’s just going to be a sequence of these temporary factors that are going to persist probably through the end of the year,” Daly said Friday in an interview with Bloomberg

Illinois will dip into its growing pot of tax revenues to pay off the remaining $2.175 billion of outstanding debt borrowed through the Federal Reserve’s Municipal Liquidity Facility to manage last year’s COVID-19 tax blows. The Treasury Department’s interim guidance, released May 10, barring debt repayment as an eligible use of American Rescue Plan dollars

Municipal high-grade benchmarks were little changed for the fourth day as U.S. Treasuries improved, as did equities, and Refinitiv Lipper reported heavy high-yield inflows. Fund inflows continue to be in positive territory with Refinitiv reporting $725 million of total inflows into municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending May 19. High-yield funds made up

Water and sewer utilities would need to issue three to four times as much debt as they have been to fund the level of projects the Environmental Protection Agency says they need, according to Moody’s analysts. The EPA estimated in a 2018 report that $743 billion in water infrastructure improvements are needed to meet the

Municipal benchmarks were unchanged top to bottom Wednesday as investors focused on the robust primary offerings, underwriters repriced bonds to lower yields while issuers saw good demand in the competitive markets as munis largely ignored FOMC taper talk and the weakness in U.S. Treasuries that followed the news. Discussions about tapering asset purchases could soon

Upsets resonated through local Pennsylvania elections on Tuesday as incumbent mayors in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg lost Democratic primaries to Black candidates and the one in Allentown is too close to call. In Pittsburgh, state Rep. Ed Gainey toppled two-term Mayor Bill Peduto and is an overwhelming favorite to become the Steel City’s first Black mayor.

Municipal benchmark yields continued to trade in a narrow range in the secondary Tuesday while the new-issue market came alive with two high-grade competitive loans and speculative-grade Guam pricing bonds to strong demand. U.S. Treasuries gave little direction and the market held steady to firmer in spots as a diverse set of deals got done

While federal aid and vaccine distribution has boosted New York City’s finances and optimism for an economic recovery, risks linger at the national, state and federal levels, said the watchdog Independent Budget Office. “New York City appears poised to emerge from the economic calamity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” IBO said in its evaluation of

Municipals were quietly traded with some strength outside 10 years as investors await the larger new-issue calendar that begins with a retail order period Tuesday from Connecticut and competitive loans from West Virginia and high-grade Prince George’s County, Maryland. Municipal benchmarks were little changed, with a basis point bump on Refinitiv MMD’s scale outside 2031

A Harvey, Illinois, pension fund claims it’s entitled to share in the Chicago suburb’s American Rescue Plan funds and wants to block the distribution of aid until a judge decides. The financially stressed suburb south of Chicago, which has battled over the last decade with its public safety pension funds, the city of Chicago, and

The fracas between governors and legislatures over executive powers during the COVID-19 pandemic is reaching a new level in Pennsylvania — two proposed constitutional amendments. Keystone State voters on Tuesday will decide on two ballot measures that would limit the governor’s emergency disaster declaration powers and enable the state legislature to end a declaration with