Muni Think

If municipal issuers have not come out of the woodwork yet in favor of the tax exemption, this should just about do it. Federal trustworthiness now is in shambles regarding subsidy programs designed to replace the tax exemption.

A recent research paper suggests widespread violations of MSRB fair pricing rules are rampant in the municipal market. But scratching just below the surface reveals serious flaws in the methodology and assumptions underlying the authors' conclusions.

Lessons from litigation over interest rate derivatives may come into sharp focus as the time for Lehman to bring claims against counterparties who terminated derivative instruments shortly after its bankruptcy filing will expire.

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.