Markets

Fitch Ratings revised its outlook to stable from negative on the state's A-plus rating, two weeks after the state received a positive outlook from S&P.

The state’s personal income tax revenue and sales tax revenue bonds were also lifted from Aa2. Related credits were also upgraded. The rating outlook is stable.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds as the Investment Company Institute on Wednesday reported $4.786 billion of outflows, up from $4.459 billion of outflows in the previous week.

The the $389.495 million of tax-exempts were sold late last month to help fund construction of the Broward County Convention Center Headquarters Hotel.

High gas prices usually have the biggest effect on leisure travel because drivers take fewer or shorter trips, Fitch Ratings says.

Denver will head to the municipal market next week with its biggest new money general obligation bond sale ever at $366.4 million.

Apollo will make an equity and credit investment that will significantly increase SWS’s underwriting capacity for municipal and corporate debt, as well as equity offerings, the firms said.

The March consumer price index offered little to deter the Federal Reserve from its aggressive plans, but markets saw it as a positive, having feared an upside miss.

The Fitch Ratings upgrade to A-plus applies to $80 million in debt issued for the University of Portland in Oregon.

The underwriters filed a defense to the court earlier this month and analysts are skeptical of MBIA’s chances of prevailing.