Finance

Legacy Health, an eight-hospital Portland, Ore.-based healthcare system, that abandoned merger plans in May received a downgrade and negative outlook from Moody's Ratings.

The world's biggest opera house has been downgraded for the second time this year.

With the break in issuance this week, the market has firmed a bit, said Tim McGregor, managing partner at Riverbend Capital Advisors.

While issuance has been on a record pace this year, this week sees a slight slowdown in activity, caused by participants going on vacation, said Jeff Timlin, a partner at Sage Advisory.

While issuance is up year-over-year, weeks like this can be difficult to find the right deals, said Whitney Fitts, director of municipal portfolio management at Appleton Partners.

"We expect subdued activity again [this] week heading into the Labor Day holiday," Birch Creek strategists said.

Munis underperformed a UST rally, which had everything to do with Powell's speech at the Jackson Hole symposium and future Fed action, said Cooper Howard, a fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab.

San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit has struggled to regain ridership after the pandemic.

A state lawmaker is asking the court to invalidate a 2022 nearly $700 million bond sale due to inadequate audits by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.

A possible explanation is that the massive inflows into mutual funds are a parallel move to large inflows into the Capital Group Municipal High-Income ETF, which saw the biggest inflow of a ETF on Friday at $1.5 billion, said Pat Luby, head of municipal strategy at CreditSights.

FOMC meeting minutes "clearly show why they didn't cut rates," said Northlight Asset Management Chief Investment Officer Chris Zaccarelli.

The 10-campus public university system apparently scrapped plans to price $1.5 billion in debt this week.

Gary Hall and Sobani Warner were named co-presidents of Siebert Williams Shank as CEO Suzanne Shank focuses on client relationships and strategic initiatives.

The muni bond market remains strong, supported by Treasury market strength, said Anders S. Persson, Nuveen's chief investment officer for global fixed income, and Daniel J. Close, Nuveen's head of municipals.

While Trump's trade war has roiled markets, unnerved foreign governments and provoked criticism from leading economists, S&P affirmed its AA-plus rating for the U.S. — a score it's given since 2011, when it first downgraded the world's largest economy from AAA.

"If unfavorable economic numbers ... are released next month, we should expect a hold on any rate cuts and a possible rate hike to follow, putting a damper on any positive returns for the rest of the year," said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

Doe announced his decision to hand over the day-to-day duties to his partners in a client email on Friday.

Issuance for the week of Aug. 18 remains elevated at an estimated at $6.166 billion, with $5.065 billion of negotiated deals and $1.101 billion of competitive deals on tap, according to LSEG.

Hunt Memorial Hospital District's distressed finances led to downgrades to Ba3 by Moody's Ratings and B-plus by S&P Global Ratings, with both giving it a negative outlook.

The latest inflation report — the producer price index — threw a monkey wrench into expectations for a big rate cut next month, according to some economists, may put into question any easing in September.