WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department announced today several changes to its new issue bond purchase program for housing finance agencies, most notably that it is pushing back by one year through 2011 a deadline for converting short-term taxable bonds to long-term, tax-exempt, fixed-rate bonds.
Several local HFAs had warned Treasury officials that they would have difficulty meeting the previous deadline at the end of this year.
"The rates market has started to turn from the upper end of the trading range this week," Barclays strategists wrote, but with the war with Iran still driving the market, nothing is certain.
Changes in federal funding are sharpening the focus on how the states will be responding to disaster relief, running social programs and budget planning.
The defendants include many of the largest municipal bond underwriters.
The deal comes as high-yield muni investors are hungry for paper.
Nearly 21% of muni volume traded electronically in the first quarter, up from the previous quarter and surpassing the previous record set in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a Coalition Greenwich report by Kevin McPartland and Neha Jain.
New research from The Bond Buyer finds the federal policy environment once again threatens the tax-exempt status for municipal bonds.
