Chip Barnett

Magalie Austin takes over from Jonnell Doris, who was named commissioner for Small Business Services.

The primary was up and running Monday with Connecticut’s $850M offering for retail while many Texas issuers were active on the heels of the Fed news that it is open for business for munis.

Uncertainty and volatility have caused a bifurcated market when it comes to credit, and widespread disparity between high-quality and high-yield is complicating matters for issuers.

Yields on all triple-A benchmark curves out to nine years are now below 1%. The largest bumps were again on the very short end of the curve. Lipper reported $580 million of inflows.

Investors are sending the message that higher-grade, longer-term issuers will fare far better than lower-rated, higher-yield ones amid a focus on credit.

The short end of the municipal curve again saw yields fall, but that didn't impede the productivity of the day's new-issue market.

The Fed on Monday essentially said it was standing 10 feet back from the market, allowing it to manage the pandemic-driven crisis itself. Lower-rated issuers may benefit most from the facility.

High-grade trading Friday showed the disparate credit picture that investors are facing; they now need to dig deeper into municipal financials and the backstops on certain bonds.

In the midst of issuer credit deterioration due to coronavirus, muni yields fell and new-deals were priced on the heels of California's $54 billion deficit news.

Primary deals are now coming at tighter spreads to the secondary than they have recently. Cooler heads are appearing on the institutional side, but ICI reports $1.7 billion pulled from muni market mutual funds.

Two credits struggling with coronavirus-driven revenue shortfalls experienced very different outcomes in Tuesday's market. Taxable Penn State bonds showed the appetite for taxable munis is real.

Continuing the firm’s national expansion, HJ Sims announced it is opening offices in Chicago and Orange County, Calif.

A premarketing wire indicated the deal could price at spreads 300 basis points north of benchmark yields. In Monday's trade, the rally begun last week continued.

Issuance in the public finance sector is likely to contract in 2020, S&P Research says.

A range of technical issues — from month-end accounting and financing to spread widening, price volatility and the coronavirus impact on businesses and the economy — spurred a tone of relative quiet in Thursday's trade.

Thursday’s jobless claims at 3.839 million, weaker income and spending data show COVID-19 continues to dampen economic activity.

The FOMC action came as GDP dropped 4.8% in the first quarter and pending home sales plunged 20.8% amid the pandemic.

Pessimism about the economic situation in the United States continues to affect the way consumers view the economy and their financial position.

Several of the Lone Star State's manufacturing indexes dropped to record lows in April, a Dallas Fed survey showed.

The Commerce Department reported that new orders for manufactured durable goods fell 14.4% in March while the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index dropped to 71.8 in April, the largest monthly decline on record.