Dan Seymour

State Street Global Advisors and Nuveen Investments launched an exchange-traded fund tracking Build America Bonds yesterday as investment vehicles devoted to taxable municipal debt continue to proliferate.

Some municipal bonds have rallied significantly since Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings last month overhauled their systems for assigning ratings to state and local government credits — effectively upgrading almost the entire universe of muni bonds.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is pioneering a unique type of public-private partnership to replace the aging Goethals Bridge.

Retail investors shrugged off the panic plaguing most of the world’s financial markets last week and poured more cash into municipal bond mutual funds.

One would expect that a socially conscious municipal bond mutual fund devoted to investing in projects that create jobs would consider Build America Bonds a welcome addition to the market.

While not the most scientific measure of foreign interest in municipal debt since the advent of Build America Bonds, Sylvan Feldstein, in his keynote address Wednesday at the National Federation of Municipal Analysts annual conference in Santa Ana Pueblo, N.M., noted more foreigners buying copies of the Handbook of Municipal Bonds.

Among the many changes to the municipal bond market wrought by the financial crisis, one may be the factors that drive muni mutual fund returns.

SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. — The short-term fiscal outlook for states is bleak. The long-term outlook is even bleaker.

It is not often one hears someone nicknamed “Wild” Bill exhorting patience.

State and local governments spent less in the first quarter of 2010 on infrastructure projects and new equipment despite a windfall of federal aid, figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday showed.

The stream of money flowing into municipal bond mutual funds picked up a little last week, but investors continue to cash out of short-term funds even past tax season.

California’s general obligation bonds have caught fire since Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings slapped higher ratings on the state’s credit earlier this month.

Wherever the money’s going, it’s not going to municipal bond mutual funds.

Lazard Ltd. has hired Thomas Suozzi, former executive of Nassau County, N.Y., as a senior adviser on partnerships between private infrastructure companies and state and local governments.

The federal government’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission has subpoenaed Moody’s Corp. for allegedly failing to provide requested information.

Many of the biggest property and casualty insurers have been paring their holdings of municipal bonds to shield themselves from exposure to troubled state and local government credit.

NEW YORK - Moody’s Investors Service kicked off a wide-scale “upward shift” in municipal credit ratings on Monday, assigning stronger grades to 34 states and Puerto Rico.

Moody’s Investors Service kicked off a wide-scale “upward shift” in municipal credit ratings yesterday, assigning stronger grades to 34 states and Puerto Rico.

Investors withdrew more cash from municipal bond mutual funds than they invested last week for the second time in less than a month, possibly heralding the end of the tidal wave of money that has washed over the industry for more than a year.

Samuel A. Ramirez & Co. has continued the expansion of its municipal business, adding three public finance bankers and a three-person municipal sales team.