Finance

The Investment Company Institute reported investors pulled $7.2 billion from municipal bond mutual funds, the largest figure since the outlier months of March 2020 when investors yanked $24 billion in two weeks.

The audit was brought on by the Internal Revenue Service in September 2021 in connection with Series 2013B bonds.

The significant cheapening of municipals in recent weeks continues to create headwinds for the overall tax-exempt market on a daily basis.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds last week, with Refinitiv Lipper reporting $4.106 billion of outflows, bring the total to $22.3 billion of outflows year-to-date.

A taxable bond issue will raise $3.4 billion for extraordinary costs incurred by natural gas utilities during deadly Winter Storm Uri that hit Texas in 2021.

Like last week, supply for the new-calendar issuance is light at $4.804 billion with $3.182 billion of negotiated deals and $1.622 billion of competitive loans.

The second quarter should bring more opportunity and less volatility following the worst quarter in four decades, analysts said.

Fitch Ratings revised its outlook to stable from negative on the state's A-plus rating, two weeks after the state received a positive outlook from S&P.

The state’s personal income tax revenue and sales tax revenue bonds were also lifted from Aa2. Related credits were also upgraded. The rating outlook is stable.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds as the Investment Company Institute on Wednesday reported $4.786 billion of outflows, up from $4.459 billion of outflows in the previous week.

High gas prices usually have the biggest effect on leisure travel because drivers take fewer or shorter trips, Fitch Ratings says.

Apollo will make an equity and credit investment that will significantly increase SWS’s underwriting capacity for municipal and corporate debt, as well as equity offerings, the firms said.

The March consumer price index offered little to deter the Federal Reserve from its aggressive plans, but markets saw it as a positive, having feared an upside miss.

The Fitch Ratings upgrade to A-plus applies to $80 million in debt issued for the University of Portland in Oregon.

The underwriters filed a defense to the court earlier this month and analysts are skeptical of MBIA’s chances of prevailing.

With the Federal Reserve planning aggressive rate hikes and balance sheet reduction, Dec Mullarkey, managing director of investment strategy and asset allocation at SLC Management, discusses the Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes, his analysis of the economy and what to expect going forward. Gary Siegel hosts. (33 minutes)

Triple-A yields continue to rise, with the two-year muni just below 2%, the five well above and the 10-year approaching 2.5%.

Supply for the holiday-shortened week is $4.8 billion. Municipals performed the worst since 1980 in the first quarter of 2022, but some analysts see the pain subsiding.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds in the latest week, with Refinitiv Lipper reporting $3.247 billion of outflows, of that $1 billion was high-yield. ETFs are still seeing inflows.

Oregon Treasurer Tobias Read called off a lottery bond sale planned in 2020 after lottery revenues cratered because of pandemic-related business closures.