Finance

Based in New York City, Ted Hynes has almost 40 years of experience in the fixed-income markets, the last 15 at Raymond James.

The bonds are rated Aa2 by Moody's Investors Service, AA by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings and AA-plus by Kroll Bond Rating Agency. All four rating agencies have a stable outlook on the credit.

The week ahead boasts some big-name issuers and rare credits, which should provide interesting price discovery. The new-issue calendar totals $6.08 billion, with a larger competitive calendar coming in at $2.4 billion.

More organizations are planning bond sales, although technical factors related to the election may mean deals come early in the year.

S&P cited budget pressures that have not been counterbalanced by new revenue growth when lowered the outlook on the city's BBB-plus rated GO bonds.

Supply is expected to increase in the coming weeks, and there may be more rate-direction volatility, said Kim Olsan, senior vice president of municipal bond trading at FHN Financial.

Policymakers appear to be concerned about the possibility of cutting interest rates too soon, according to minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's Jan. 30-31 meeting, released Wednesday.

Pensions funds are increasingly investing in riskier asset classes, with more than half their investments in 2022 in these, according to some estimates.

"With the new economic data signaling a delay of the Fed starting rate cuts to further into the year, we should continue to see yields rise until we get near to the Fed's target of a 2% 'neutral' rate for inflation," said Jason Wong, vice president of municipals at AmeriVet Securities.

All municipal bond insurers wrapped $35.381 billion in 2023, a 5.8% increase from the $33.428 billion insured in 2022, according to LSEG data.