Markets

Daily bid-wanteds totals per Bloomberg have fallen to an average par value below $450 million from $640 million per day during the first quarter and $549 million in the second.

The nearly 40% year-over-year decrease is a result of various factors including rising interest rates, other financing tools, such as forward delivery bonds, and simply that refundings are in less demand from issuers.

The settled proceeding against Anthony Falsetta, announced Tuesday, is the latest in a string of SEC cases targeting violations of retail order periods.

The absence of advance refunding and a direct-pay bond program in the bipartisan infrastructure package has lobbyists pushing for inclusion of those things in the reconciliation bill, a matter only weeks away.

Moody's assigned its Baa1 rating to the California Institute of the Arts, which traces its lineage to Walt Disney, ahead of the university's $33 million debut in the public debt markets.

Cooper Howard, director of fixed income strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, talks with Chip Barnett about what municipal bond investors can expect in the second half of the year – low yields and strong fundamentals. He looks at continuing bond fund inflows, rising taxable issuance and compressed spreads. (14 minutes/Taped Aug. 3).

Returns of negative 0.40% would be the third-worst August performance of the past 10 years, according to Bloomberg data.

S&P has Muncie and Plainfield on its watch list with negative implications.

The fast-growing Texas capital was downgraded by Fitch Ratings ahead of a $328 million bond sale that is expected to price in September.

Experts agreed that Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged the Fed could start tapering this year and that it would have no implications for liftoff, but not everyone was satisfied with what they heard.