Kyle Glazier

The National Association of Bond Lawyers has announced that it will present three of its members with awards when the group meets in Chicago next month.

Municipal securities will not qualify as high-quality liquid assets under a new federal liquidity coverage ratio rule slated to take effect on Jan. 1. However, the Federal Reserve Board is working on a proposal to include some municipal bonds as HQLA at a later date.

State treasurers and financial officers are urging federal banking regulators to identify quantitative liquidity standards or characteristics that would allow at least some municipal securities to qualify as high-quality liquid assets in a rule to be released on Wednesday.

A more than $700 million dollar deal that RBC Capital Markets executed in New Mexico earlier this month is has raised the eyebrows of some market participants, who think the firm's municipal advisory relationships with several New Mexico cities created a conflict of interest when it underwrote the deal for a power authority run by those municipalities.

A bipartisan House duo is threatening the Securities and Exchange Commission, warning it must further ease the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative for dealers before the Sept. 10 deadline for participation or they will step in with legislative action.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board failed to address concerns that its proposed municipal advisor supervision rule will be too costly and burdensome, non-dealer MAs told the Securities and Exchange Commission this week.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's new credit rating agency reforms seem to make some positive strides for the muni market by creating parity between municipal and corporate bond ratings and increasing rating methodology transparency, sources said.

Non-dealer municipal advisors are concerned that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's draft core MA rule contains an exemption for "inadvertent advice," while broker-dealers say certain aspects of the rule are too vague and too broad.

Municipal bond broker-dealer groups have spent nearly $5 million trying to influence federal lawmakers in recent months, using in-house lobbyists as well as outside firms and campaign contributions to promote their positions on securities laws, tax reform, and regulation.

Existing home sales rose 2.4% to a seasonally adjusted 5.15 million-unit rate in July from a revised 5.03 million pace the previous month, the National Association of Realtors announced Thursday.

The Government Finance Officers Association has issued a new alert on the Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation initiative, offering guidance to issuers on how to make use of the extra time they were granted to participate in the program and explaining problems state and local governments face in performing due diligence.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposal to extend its dealer pay-to-play rule to include municipal advisors contains provisions that would affect both dealer and non-dealer MAs, market participants said Tuesday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations has launched a program to scrutinize newly-regulated municipal advisors, the SEC announced Tuesday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is proposing to extend its pay-to-play rule to cover municipal advisors -- a move dealer-affiliated MAs have long called a key step in creating a level playing field among them and non-dealer MAs.

Beginning Aug. 20, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's Municipal Swap Index will use only data that has been reported to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board in its weekly benchmark calculation.

Personal income taxes and possibly all state taxes appear to be down in the second quarter of this year based on preliminary data, the Rockefeller Institute of Government of the State University of New York said in a report released Thursday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is asking for comment on proposed changes to its G-14 trade reporting rule, including whether to require dealers to identify conditional trade commitments, which differ from newly issued bonds but are reported at the same time.

Many municipal market professionals are concerned that the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposed best execution rule would not be functionally different from the fair pricing obligations that the MSRB and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority already impose on dealers.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board announced Tuesday that it will rebate $3.6 million to broker-dealers because it has collected more money in technology fees than the board needs to maintain its systems.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the state of Kansas with violating federal securities laws by failing to disclose in bond documents that the state's pension system was significantly underfunded, creating a repayment risk for investors.