Finance

"Bond market investors are all wishing that April was behind us as they are anxious to hear the Fed's statement at its next FOMC meeting," noted BofA Global Research. "The statement should be no surprise as the market consensus has converged to 'higher for longer' rates.

UBS' Head of Municipal Trading Doug Vissicchio joins Bond Buyer's Lynne Funk to talk muni shop.

S&P Global Ratings joined Moody's in assigning a negative outlook to its triple-A rating, but a criteria change pushed Fitch's rating of the city up to AAA.

Inflows returned to muni mutual funds as investors added $200.3 million for the week ending Wednesday after $1.474 billion of outflows, according to LSEG Lipper.

"Each party in this deal benefits in some way," said Seema Mohanty, founder of Mohanty Gargiulo.

The "impressive" investor appetite for tax-exempts has been "holding steady all quarter despite expensive valuations, supply surges and periods of low reinvestment demand," said GW&K Investment Management strategists in a report.

Along with UBS' departure from the negotiated underwriting space, various firms have hired talent from both firms to increase their primary and secondary market presence. Many hope for some positive effects in both competition and secondary market liquidity as a result.

Moody's Ratings on Monday revised Illinois' outlook to positive from stable and affirmed the state's A3 issuer rating and the A3 rating on its GO debt.

"Bifurcated demand reflects the persistent bid strength from [separately managed accounts] and retail investors, not to mention more accounts marshaling cash and liquidity up front while the Fed perspective evolves," said MMA's Matt Fabian.

The trio have decades of experience in high yield and investment grade portfolios and will launch new high-yield investment strategies and vehicles for Rockefeller.

"The rating action reflects our view of MIA's substantial demand, which surpasses pre-pandemic activity, and its leadership in enplanement growth for large hub airports since the fiscal 2019 peak," said S&P's Nora Wittstruck.

Fitch Ratings said the negative outlook on the BB-plus rating reflects Miami Jewish's thin operating profile.

The new-issue calendar will be a "good test to see if the higher absolute yields can pull buyers off the sidelines or if underwriters need to widen spreads significantly enough to reprice the entire market to clear the deals," according to Birch Creek strategists.

"The upgrade is supported by strengthened debt service coverage ratios due to better than expected recovery from the pandemic," Fitch said.

S&P affirmed the state's AA issuer credit rating, citing healthy reserves and plans to increase permanent fund totals to mitigate revenue fluctuations.

A combination of a "stronger-than-expected economy, higher Treasury rates, robust supply, and rich valuations resulting in choppy markets" have made the trading environment in H124 "quite difficult," according to Barclays.

The replacement Hollywood Burbank Airport terminal won't have more gates, but will be less cramped and resolve its noncompliance with FAA safety regulations.

"Folloing recent yield moves, a generic muni index is now down 1% on the month with no real sub-sector showing much deviation from that result," said Kim Olsan, senior vice president of trading at FHN Financial.

The finance team is "marketing slices of risk" to raise money to refinance its debt, investors said.

Jeffrey Scruggs, Managing Director and Head of Public Sector and Infrastructure Group at Goldman Sachs, sits down with Bond Buyer Executive Editor Lynne Funk on the state of the muni industry.