Buy side

New Jersey labor unions are calling for the state’s pension fund to scale back its alternative investments to help cut down on fees paid to Wall Street firms.

Fitch Ratings’ recent guidance on school bond ratings won’t bring across-the-board higher ratings to California school bonds; the agency will require a legal opinion to consider such GO bonds to be special revenues in a bankruptcy case.

In the week ended March 23, the weekly average yield to maturity of the Bond Buyer Municipal Bond Index fell two basis points to 4.06% from 4.08% in the previous week. The BB40 Index is based on the price of 40 long-term bonds.

The best execution rule, which took effect this week, may solidify a market shift concentrating retail customers in a few large firms, while others seek just to keep their institutional business running smoothly, market participants said.

The risky underpinnings of Chicago’s efforts to solve its $20 billion pension mess are taking center stage this week.

A higher-than-expected 2015 operating loss at Illinois-based Presence Health is expected to trigger a technical default that would allow bondholders and banks to accelerate some debt repayments.

Following a consultant's scathing report, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer's office has set out to streamline the Bureau of Asset Management.

The volatile stock market has hurt the asset performance of large pension plans, a signal that fiscal year 2016 returns may fall short of assumed targets for the second consecutive year, Moody's Investors Service said in a report.

The weekly average yield to maturity of The Bond Buyer Municipal Bond Index, which is based on 40 long-term bond prices, dropped two basis points to 4.08% from 4.10% in the previous week.

In a financial mess that spans the Atlantic, Louisiana affiliates of a German wood pellet processing firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, potentially leaving bond investors on the hook for a project poised to receive millions in state incentives.

The addition of a municipal high yield team from Invesco Ltd. is intended to add depth to its City National Rochdale Municipal High Income Fund and bring its management in-house.

So-called headline and political risk, notably in Pennsylvania, could further complicate an already difficult muni landscape, according to PNC Capital Markets.

S3, a financial services software company that provides customized platforms to monitor and analyze trade execution for equities and options, introduced a Fixed Income Execution Quality Suite to help bond traders comply with new best-execution standards.

With performance thriving and volatility trending lower, investors have pumped cash into high-yield municipal bond funds for the past 22 weeks to extend the sector’s more than two-year recovery.

The weekly average yield to maturity of The Bond Buyer Municipal Bond Index, which is based on 40 long-term bond prices, was two basis points higher to 4.10% from 4.08% for the previous week.

Revised outlooks to negative from two of the four bond rating agencies represent “bittersweet” news for Connecticut, said state Treasurer Denise Nappier.

A $1 trillion shortfall in public pension plans is rooted in poor governance, think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research reported.

Organizers of a muni conference that features academics, market practitioners, public officials and regulations are rebranding the event and moving it from Boston to Washington.

From a threatened teacher strike to an escalating state-level attack on its governance and borrowing powers, the barrage of bad news has not let up for junk-rated Chicago Public Schools.

With one month to go until opening day, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services on Friday raised its underlying rating on the District of Columbia’s baseball park revenue bonds to BBB+ from BBB.