Finance

The borrowing arm of the Missouri Department of Transportation will take competitive bids on $489 million of new money debt Tuesday.

Munis were in their own lane while broader markets were mixed Monday as participants digested various Fed officials' comments on inflation and rate hike schedules.

Both S&P Global Ratings and Kroll Bond Rating Agency revised their outlooks for Chicago general obligation bonds to positive from stable.

Fitch also affirmed the A rating on $800.3 million of senior lien seaport revenue bonds Miami-Dade County issued on behalf of its seaport department.

Refinitiv Lipper reported $2.537 billion of outflows from municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending Wednesday after $2.389 billion the week prior.

Municipal bond mutual funds saw more losses on Wednesday with the Investment Company Institute reporting another week of multi-billion-dollar outflows, bringing year-to-date losses to $123.3 billion.

Chicago's upcoming general obligation sale will carry a Moody's rating for the first time since at least 2014.

The market has seen outflows for 13 straight weeks, per Refinitiv Lipper, but Nuveen strategists Anders S. Persson and John V. Miller said "selling is due primarily to investors harvesting tax losses."

Seven years after dropping Chicago to speculative grade citing pension funding, Moody's returned the city to investment grade, citing pension funding.

Voters will decide on more than $60 billion of bond ballot measures Tuesday with New York voters faced with the largest amount at $4.2 billion.

ICE TMC, part of ICE Bonds, provides market participants access to an all-to-all market for trading munis and other bonds.

Investors will be greeted Monday with a new-issue calendar estimated at $5.268 billion.

High-yield saw outflows of $867.067 million after $594.497 million of outflows the week prior while exchange-traded funds saw inflows of $736.967 million after $444.544 million of inflows the previous week.

Investors pulled $3.843 billion from mutual funds in the week ending Oct. 26 after $3.876 billion of outflows the previous week, according to ICI.

The rating agency lifted the outlook of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest, to positive.

October returns were in the red with the Bloomberg Municipal Index showing a loss of 0.83% for the month, bringing total losses in 2022 to 12.86%. Only May and July saw positive returns for the asset class.

With the Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week and the next week shortened by the bond market observance of Veterans Day, CreditSights strategists said "investors should be prepared for two weeks of subdued new issuance."

The upcoming Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday has led to a lighter new-issue calendar with $2.72 billion on tap.

Municipal to UST ratios have risen this week with the 10-year approaching 90% and the 30-year topping 100%.

Outflows continued as investors pulled $3.876 billion from mutual funds in the week ending Oct. 19 after $4.532 billion of outflows the previous week, according to the Investment Company Institute.