Andrew Ackerman

WASHINGTON — A Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board proposal on priority of orders in new-issue retail periods would impose new standards on dealers that are confusing or contradictory and could lead to higher borrowing costs for issuers, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association warned.

Initial jobless claims dropped by 22,000 to 432,000 for the week ending Dec. 26, the lowest number of initial claims reported for any week last year, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

WASHINGTON – Initial jobless claims dropped by 22,000 to 432,000 for the week ending Dec. 26, the lowest number of initial claims reported for any week this year, the Labor Department reported today.

WASHINGTON — Next year will bring significant changes in the municipal securities market if Congress passes sweeping financial regulatory reform in what would be the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON ­— The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday charged a Houston-based broker with engaging in unauthorized and unsuitable trading on behalf of two Florida municipalities, putting them at risk of losing millions of dollars while reaping more than $14 million in commissions.

Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. will complete the buyback of auction-rate securities from retail investors six months early under a settlement in principle reached with securities regulators in Missouri, Indiana, and Colorado announced late Monday.

Durable goods orders inched up 0.2% in November, the second increase in the past three months, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

WASHINGTON - Durable goods orders inched up 0.2% in November, the second increase in the past three months, the Commerce Department reported this morning.

Existing home sales jumped 7.4% in November to a 6.54 million annual rate, spurred by the original Nov. 30 deadline for a recently extended federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers, the National Association of Realtors reported yesterday.

Now that the first shoe has dropped in the Justice Department's criminal investigation of alleged anti-competitive activities in the municipal derivatives and investment markets, what comes next in 2010?

WASHINGTON - Existing home sales jumped 7.4% in November to a 6.54 million annual rate spurred by the original Nov. 30 deadline for a recently extended federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers, the National Association of Realtors reported today.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Friday filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission a revised proposal that would temporarily give issuers more time to voluntarily disclose annual financial information to EMMA for special designation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is moving forward with a sweeping but informal inquiry into the manner in which Miami presented its financial condition in offering documents for bonds issued in 2007.

WASHINGTON - The consumer price index rose 0.4% in November boosted by a large monthly increase in gasoline prices, the Labor Department reported today.

A coalition of publicly traded, non-bank corporations that own billions of dollars of illiquid student loan auction-rate securities is pushing for a federal liquidity backstop so they can sell the ARS and have money to invest in their businesses.

Industrial production jumped 0.8% in November, more than economists' forecasts, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Reserve.

WASHINGTON – Industrial production jumped 0.8% in November, more than economists’ forecasts, according to data released today by the Federal Reserve.

Robert Bradbury, the former chairman and chief executive officer of the now-defunct underwriting firm Dolphin & Bradbury Inc., was sentenced by a federal judge in Philadelphia yesterday to a 366-day prison sentence and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine in connection with his pleading guilty to one criminal count of securities fraud.

More than a year after Moody's Investor Service announced that it was postponing the recalibration of its U.S. municipal rating scale amid the financial crisis, the agency may be close to announcing its plans to move forward on the changes once again.

WASHINGTON — As the House Friday approved the most sweeping financial regulatory reform legislation since the Depression, municipal issuers are debating the effectiveness of a little-noticed provision that would require rating agencies to rate municipal and other debt on the same scale and based on the likelihood of repayment to investors.