Muni Think

The onset of hurricane season on June 1 and the season's first named storm making landfall in Florida remind us that natural disasters can affect bond investors and issuers, including municipal entities in geographic areas in the path of a weather-related event.

With the nation's state and local governments already financing some 75% of America's public infrastructure and the federal surface transportation program on the brink of insolvency, the Finance Committee paper is a recipe for undermining the single most critical source of financing the nation's public infrastructure.

Before the financial crisis of 2008-09, it would have been significant news if yields on municipal bonds had exceeded those on Treasury securities at any maturity, and that occurrence likely would have attracted a variety of investors seeking to take advantage of the relative-value opportunity.

The MSRB needs to clarify that regulated persons serving as financial advisors, regardless of the title they use, cannot disclaim fiduciary duty.

Why invest in the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market? SIFMA's Michael Decker offers some of the compelling reasons.

Does the Federal Reserve really think that another round of continued buying of long term Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities will provide a significant healing effect to the ailing economy? Isn't it time to consider a different course of treatment where the "bang for the monetary buck" will be more significant?

Rep. Gwen Moore thinks HR 1628, the Public Pension Transparency Act introduced last week by Reps. Devin Nunes, Paul Ryan and Darrell Issa, proceeds from a false premise, which causes the bill to introduce opacity rather than transparency of disclosure into the market, and intrudes on state sovereignty and policy preferences in order to attack public workers and pensions.

The timing of twin proposals by Rep. Devin Nunes and Messieurs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, which threatren state and local tax-exempt municipal bonds, could not have been worse.

New issue bond activity for charter schools in the first quarter reflects diversity in both charter schools and issuance characteristics.

Absent any further action by Congress, on May 19 the debt ceiling will automatically reset to the nation's debt level. This has important implications for municipal issuers selling refunding debt near this date.