Kyle Glazier

Securities and Exchange Commission member Daniel Gallagher said Thursday that pension and other post-employment benefit liabilities need to be made more transparent for investors, and argued for a universal "disclosure baseline" that all cities should use.

Two members of Congress are urging federal regulators to reevaluate a proposal to exclude municipal bonds from qualifying as high quality liquid assets under banking rule designed to ensure banks are equipped to handle severe financial and economic stress.

Another broker dealer group is asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposal to charge each municipal advisor professional $300 per year, but non-dealer MAs are giving the MSRB's fee structure their support.

Existing home sales rose 1.3% to a seasonally adjusted 4.65 million unit rate in April from an unrevised 4.59 million pace the previous month, the National Association of Realtors announced Thursday.

Securities and Exchange Commission attorney Peter Chan defended the commission's Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation Initiative Wednesday, telling issuer officials not to succumb to fear or confusion about the MCDC one day after the leader of a dealer group blasted the program.

Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association president and chief executive officer Kenneth Bentsen criticized recent efforts by the Securities and Exchange Commission to further regulate the muni market, telling issuer officials on Tuesday that a new rule and initiative could undermine productive relationships between municipalities and underwriters.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has released new information on its municipal advisor rule that includes "transitional guidance" for market participants who had been anxious about providing advice to funds that might include bond proceeds.

Market participants are divided over the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board's proposal to require a qualifications exam for municipal advisors, with some wanting a uniform exam for all muni finance professionals and others wanting an approach more tailored to specific MA activities.

State and local officials are worried that small issuers of municipal bonds will be disproportionately exposed to the risk of enforcement action under the Securities and Exchange Commission's continuing self-reporting program on disclosure failures, and plan to pressure the commission to extend the initiative's deadline beyond its current Sept. 10 date and offer more guidance.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association will help large issuers of municipal bonds pressure the Securities and Exchange Commission for a sophisticated issuer exemption from its municipal advisor rule, and will also request another delay in the rule's effective date if more guidance is not available soon.

The Government Finance Officers Association has released model language for issuer officials to use when interracting with broker-dealers and other entities under the municipal advisor rule.

Asset managers may have to register as municipal advisors to protect themselves from violating the Securities and Exchange Commission's MA rule, which places restrictions on advice concerning muni bond proceeds and other financial products commonly used by states and localities.

Issuers and underwriters might consider comprehensive reviews of all their deals stretching back a decade to determine if they might have disclosure failures worth voluntarily reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission, securities law experts said Wednesday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board got the go-ahead from the Securities and Exchange Commission to consolidate muni dealers' existing fair-pricing obligations into a single rule.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has released guidance on its new consolidated registration rule, which seeks to streamline the process for municipal advisors as well as broker-dealers.

The Federal Reserve is studying Puerto Rico as an indicator of the level of risk in the muni market, where heavy retail investor presence can make behavior unpredictable, an economist with one its banks told municipal analysts on Thursday.

The National Federation of Municipal Analysts presented its annual awards during its conference here on Wednesday, honoring four individuals and an organization for contributions to the municipal bond industry.

Transportation finance experts expect robust bond financing of new transportation and infrastructure projects in the near future, even though federal policy is making those investments increasingly tricky.

Unfunded public pension liabilities can be vastly different depending on the assumptions made and how they are calculated, but it is clear that plans are taking far more risk today than they have in the past, pension experts told municipal analysts at a conference here Wednesday.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is revising its proposed rule governing the duties of municipal advisors in response to market comments, and will also propose amending its pay-to-play rule to cover MAs, the MSRB announced Tuesday.