News and Information from Bond Buyer

The tax-exempt market headed lower on Thursday for a second consecutive session as traders cut prices in the secondary market following mixed reception of primary deals throughout the week.

Illinois will soon begin remarketing $600 million of variable-rate paper from a 2003 issue with fresh letters of credit from six banks to replace an expired liquidity facility from Depfa plc.

The Treasury Department sold $13 billion of inflation-indexed 9-year 8-month TIPs at a 0.560% high yield, an adjusted price of 98.268271, with a 3/8% coupon.

The U.S. should have looked at Japan's experience with near-zero rates before the December 2008 Federal Open Market Committee decision to drop rates near zero, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said Thursday.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Tulsa International Airport's revenue bonds to Baa1 from A3, citing five straight years of declining enplanements.

The costs exceed the benefits of the Federal Reserve continuing its large-scale asset purchases, Richmond Federal Reserve Bank President Jeffrey Lacker strongly suggested Thursday.

Siebert Brandford Shank and Co. LLC, the No. 14 senior manager of bond issues by par amount in 2012, appointed recent New York City mayoral candidate and former comptroller Bill Thompson as chief administrative officer and senior managing director.

The tax-exempt market weakened on Thursday morning, playing catch up to the Treasury selloff Wednesday afternoon after the release of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes.

As congressional conferees struggle with negotiating a budget resolution, the nation’s governors want more certainty about the federal budget and the amount of funds states will receive as well as more flexibility in how to spend that money, National Governors Association officials said.

Total spending by U.S. states fell 1.7% in Fiscal Year 2012, the National Association of State Budget Officers said in its annual “State Expenditure Report,” the first decline in the history of the 26-year-old survey’s history.

The total net assets of tax-exempt money market funds continued to see-saw as they inched up by $561.5 million to $263.82 billion in the week ended Nov. 18, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

The Treasury Department said it will auction $29 billion seven-year notes on Wednesday, Nov. 27.

The Treasury Department said Thursday it will auction $32 billion 91-day bills and $28 billion 182-day discount bills Monday.

Stockton is poised to exit Chapter 9 bankruptcy in March 2014, but not without a fight with its last major creditor, Franklin Advisers, over $35 million of the city's lease revenue bonds.

Total spending by U.S. states fell 1.7% in Fiscal Year 2012, The National Association of State Budget Officers said in its annual “State Expenditure Report,” the first decline in the history of the 26-year old survey’s history.

The Senate banking Committee Thursday voted 14-8 to approve the nomination of Janet Yellen for chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

The region's manufacturing sector expanded at a slower pace in November, as the general business conditions index slipped to 6.5 from 19.8 in October, this month's Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Report on Business indicates.

State pension funds across the country are benefitting from the $13 billion record settlement with JP Morgan, which culminated a national effort regarding the investment bank's “packaging, marketing, sale and issuance” of toxic mortgages, writes Michael Giardina of Investment Management Mandate Pipeline. According to the settlement agreement, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said Tuesday that the New York-based financial institution agreed to the “largest settlement with a single entity in American history.” JP Morgan also “acknowledged [through the agreement that] it made serious misrepresentations to the public” about its residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) dealings.

Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits were down more than expected in the November 16 week, dropping by 21,000 to 323,000 for the week including Veterans Day, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

October PPI was reported down 0.2%, and core rose 0.2% (0.1616% unrounded). These represent a minuscule 0.3% gain overall and a 1.4% increase in core over the year.