1.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott has ordered state agencies to prepare lists of "critical state funding needs" in the event there is a government shutdown on July 1.
2.
Two divisions of Morgan Stanley have been censured and ordered to pay $675,000 to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority charges that they misrepresented municipal bond interest paid to customers as tax-exempt, when it should have been taxable.
3.
In the shadow of the biggest Wall Street empires, Hennion & Walsh has managed to thrive for a quarter of a century using the basic principle of providing value to its retail municipal bond customers through its attention to quality, not quantity.
4.
More than $2 million missing from debt service reserve funds. A high-level employee fired from a top-ten municipal bond trustee. Angry investors asking where their money is.
5.
A New York City program aimed at cutting recidivism rates among Rikers Island adolescent prison inmates failed to meet its desired goal.
6.
Morgan Stanley is cutting 25% of its public finance team.
7.
Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro García Padilla may have worsened relations with traditional municipal investors when he acknowledged long-standing concerns that the commonwealth cannot pay its $72 billion in municipal bond debts.
8.
Eric Vandercar, an award-winning member of the municipal bond industry, was one of six people who died in Tuesday night's Metro-North accident.
9.
Thirty-six municipal underwriters agreed to pay a total of $9.3 million and take remedial actions to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they sold bonds with offering documents that contained false or misleading statements about the issuers' compliance with continuing disclosure obligations.
10.
Chicago is almost $400 million underwater on 24 swaps tied to $2.4 billion of floating-rate general obligation and revenue-backed paper, the city reports in a new disclosure.