Markets

Two hospital deals were among the first to price Monday, including $1.317 billion for Henry Ford Health and $1.118 billion of bonds for Intermountain Health.

The Texas city will offer $540.55 million of senior lien and $122.45 million of junior lien special tax revenue bonds to investors this week.

Market Intelligence analyst Jeff Lipton says overreliance on financial ratios can obscure forward-looking credit risks, making qualitative factors such as political willingness, management strategy, cyber-threat preparedness, legal security and economic and policy change essential to muni decision-making.

Positive developments in Iran have munis looking stronger, said Tim Iltz of H.J. Sims, but if the headlines turn negative, it could hurt markets in a week with high volume.

Brightline Florida now has until Friday to make the payments, negotiate another extension, or restructure its $5.5 billion of debt.

Issuance was $44.928 billion in 694 deals, down 19.8% year-over-year from $56.055 billion across 860 transactions.

Although the proposal ultimately didn't become law, that disconnect created an attractive entry point for investors because prices reflected tax policy fears — not deteriorating municipal credit.

After the week's losses, August could kick off with a "buyer's market" for munis, Peter DeGroot wrote for J.P. Morgan.

With longer-term municipal bond yields falling, there's less of an incentive to issue tender option bonds, analysts said, but a market remains. 

Wednesday's FOMC meeting helped sparked a selloff in U.S. Treasuries. On Thursday, it was the muni market's turn to react, MMA's Kevin McGuigan said.