Finance

Hilltop plans to hire others over the next 12 to 18 months.

The Investment Company Institute Wednesday reported large inflows into municipal bond mutual funds, with investors adding $2.066 billion to funds, while exchange-traded funds saw $1.082 billion of outflows for the week ending Jan. 10.

Munis have "struggled to get out of starting gate" to start 2024 as munis are returning negative 0.24% so far this year, said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

The tax-exempt market could also see pressure due to "heavy issuance, anemic flows, and rate volatility," according to Barclays PLC.

S&P's outlook revision to positive means there is a one-in-three chance the state could have its AA-plus rating upgraded to AAA over the next two years.

The Chicago Board of Education on Wednesday saw its issuer rating and debt ratings from Moody's Investors Service elevated a notch to Ba1 from Ba2.

The top two municipal bond insurers wrapped $31.845 billion in 2023, up 10.4% from the $28.847 billion of deals in 2022, according to Refinitiv data.

The December consumer price index came in slightly stronger than expected, perhaps eliminating the possibility of a rate cut in March, analysts said.

There were several ways Adaje could integrate ficc.ai's offerings into its system, the most impactful would be tender offering analyses, said Dan Silva, Adaje CEO.

The one-year was cut up to eight basis points, depending on the scale.

The offered curve is "still deeply overbought" at all maturities outside of one year, which is "a signal for issuers and sellers to become aggressive," said Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics.

The agency plans to broaden its current market share and expand into new sectors.

Since November, 10-year munis have fallen 130 basis points, according to Refinitiv MMD. This has pushed ratios to near-record lows, said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

The state of Illinois is preparing to issue $600 million in new Build Illinois junior sales tax revenue bonds next week.

Despite the outperformance this week, and while the asset class had "a stellar December, which rounded out a very solid year," Barclays PLC strategists said the high-grade muni market has become "quite rich."

Labor costs that continue to squeeze operating margins remain the biggest obstacle for the nonprofit healthcare sector.

The muni market enters this year from a relative position of strength, said Jeff Lipton, managing director and head of municipal research and strategy at Oppenheimer.

Three districts are under Washington's state fiscal oversight and the largest, Marysville School District, took a multi-notch Moody's bond rating downgrade.

This year has favorable potential for 1Q activity, noting an unusually large scheduled reinvestment potential in January and February, including $19 billion of maturities plus calls in January and $24.9 billion in February, noted MMA's Matt Fabian.

North Las Vegas was upgraded to A-minus from BBB-plus by Fitch Ratings, which kept its positive outlook.