NEW YORK – Retail sales rose 2.0% in the week ended June 9, after a 3.1% jump the week before, according to the weekly retail sales report released by Johnson Redbook Tuesday.
Month-to-date, June was up 2.5% from June 2011 (2.9% gain expected). June to-date is 0.6% better than May (0.9% target).
April's "poor performance" pushed munis further into negative territory, but "despite the poor start to the year, they may still end the year positive," said Cooper Howard, a fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab.
The driving force behind the trend is the overall strength of the economy, according to Fitch Ratings' Michael Rinaldi. Revenue sources for municipalities, such as sales and property taxes, are doing very well.
Syncora and GoldenTree Asset Management want an accounting of what happened to PREPA net revenues.
The MSRB's move to a one-minute reporting standard was questioned in a House hearing Tuesday in the context of regulation that could go too far.
"It'll be very interesting to see when an event happens or the market get sloppy, what the secondary market does," said a sellside panelist at a Bond Buyer market outlook panel in Florida.
Delivery delays for Boeing planes are impacting airports, with Southwest Airlines recently announcing it is pulling out or reducing flights at some facilities.
