Markets

Municipal bond traders will be seeing more deals come their way on Wednesday with competitive sales from a Virginia issuer and a negotiated deal from Georgia.

The pace of housing starts rose by 8.3% to a 1.215 million seasonally adjusted annual rate in June, well above expectations for a rebound to a 1.150 million pace, data reported by the Commerce Department Wednesday morning showed.

Top-rated municipal bonds finished stronger on Tuesday as the competitive arena heated up with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York’s offering of four bond sales totaling almost $1.5 billion.

The Chicago-based investment banking firm said Tuesday it will drop its municipal sales, trading, and underwriting business.

Top-rated municipal bonds were stronger at mid-session, according to traders, as the competitive arena heated up with the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York’s offering four bond sales totaling almost $1.5 billion while the state of New Mexico brought two sales totaling over $380 million.

S&P dropped Alaska to AA amid dwindling budget reserves.

Sean Carney, director and head of municipal strategy at BlackRock, talks about municipal issuance in the first half of 2017 and makes some predictions on how the second half of the year will look. He also discusses distressed states — which state could recover first and why and how a downgrade of Illinois would be a big deal for the market. Hosted by Aaron Weitzman in a conversation recorded on June 29.

A decreased reliance on bonds to finance capital investments has created a need for more municipal market research tools, experts said.

Builders’ confidence in the market for new single-family homes slipped as the National Association of Home Builders' housing market index fell to 64 in July from a downwardly revised 66 in June.

Municipal bond traders are set to see the first of the week’s new issue hit the screens on Tuesday, led by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York’s four competitive bond sales.