Maria Bonello

Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. has hired Hardy Manges, former executive director of municipal sales and trading at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, to help further expand its municipal sales and trading business.

William Hayden, former managing director of public finance at JPMorgan, has been hired by PNC Financial Services as the Pittsburgh bank expands its municipal practice.

Municipal bond and Treasury yields fell Friday morning after the employment report showed job growth improvements with slowed wages and no change in the unemployment rate.

Susannah Page, a former director in the municipal research sector at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has joined Roosevelt & Cross Inc.

Prices firmed after Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen said the U.S. job market will need assistance from low interest rates “for some time,” during a community reinvestment conference in Chicago early Monday.

The municipal market got off to a slow start as munis slipped on a quieter than normal Monday.

The municipal market opened slowly on Monday as yields adjust from investors' knee-jerk reaction to the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's interest rate spook, which the market interpreted as moving the possibility of a rate hike up six months in 2015.

Morgan Stanley will form a joint municipal trading unit merging the firm's institutional and wealth management municipal desks.

JPMorgan and Charles Schwab have extended an agreement to provide Schwab's clients with access to municipal bonds issued by JPMorgan.

Municipal mutual funds reported inflows slowed to $99.48 million in the week ended March 5 from $247 million of inflows the week before. Assets of all weekly reporting municipal funds increased to $281.69 billion, up from $280.11 billion, Lipper FMI reported.

Municipal mutual funds reported inflows slowed to $247 million in the week ended Feb. 26 from $320.04 million of inflows the week before.

U.S. municipal housing bond ratings are anticipated to stabilize with the assistance of federal programs and a low-interest-rate environment as the economy continues to improve, according to Standard & Poor's.