Finance

Arizona's second-largest city reported general fund surpluses in recent years, easing structural budget balance concerns that weighed on its ratings, Fitch said.

Secondary selling pressure was concentrated most heavily on the one-year Tuesday, but sellers pushed yields higher across the curve by five to seven. Bids wanteds were on the rise again with Monday's total hitting $2.122 billion.

S&P Global Ratings raised the state flagship university's rating to AA-minus from A-plus.

"Yield levels are now notably higher throughout many sectors of the yield curve by a number of percentage points," said Morgan Stanley strategists Matthew Gastall and Daryl Helsing.

Moody's dropped Sparrow Health's rating a notch as it's not yet factoring in the financial and operational benefits of its acquisition by UM Health, which won't extent to a debt guarantee.

"This week will likely have been the last active week of the year, but it turned out to be quite eventful," according to Barclays PLC.

Outflows returned as Refinitiv Lipper reported $1.217 billion was pulled out of municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending Wednesday after $46.912 million of inflows the week prior.

The Fed chairman said he believes the Fed is getting close to a sufficiently restrictive level, but they're not quite there. While two good inflation reports are good, "there's still a long way to go to price stability."

The CPI report showed inflation had slowed to 7.1%, giving investors confidence the Federal Open Market Committee will hike rates 50 basis points as expected following Wednesday's much-anticipated meeting.

States and localities would split a combined $10.7 billion from the two national pharmacy chains.

Moody's downgraded $651 million of Main Line Health Services revenue bond debt to A1 from Aa3.

The December Federal Open Market Committee meeting, combined with the release of inflation data, "will test the good cheer currently prevailing in the bond market," said MSCI Research strategists Andy Sparks, Tamas Hanis and Edina Szirma.

Investors will be greeted Monday with a new-issue calendar estimated at $3.214 billion, the majority of which is a nearly $1.9 billion private activity P3 bond deal from Pennsylvania.

Arrick was formerly a managing director and healthcare group leader for S&P Global Ratings.

Refinitiv Lipper reported $46.912 million was added to municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending Wednesday after $1.394 billion of outflows the week prior.

"Yield curve inversion deepens and nears a four-decade low which is clearly setting up this economy for a recession that won't be a mild one," OANDA's Edward Moya said.

Despite the volatility in equities and Treasuries, the backdrop for munis is very positive.

"Munis are poised to continue this rally into December as we can end 2022 on a high note and close out the worst-performing year on record for munis," said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

Investors will be greeted Monday with a new-issue calendar estimated at $5.893 billion.

Hospital fiscal wounds have mounted this year and the balance sheet damage is expected to extend into 2023 as labor pressures show little sign of easing.