Investments

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded to B3 from Ba3 its rating on Ashland University, Ohio, and kept its outlook negative.

The week's largest deals have arrived to give the municipal market a year-end feel. As expected, investors are feeding at the new-issue trough and largely ignoring the secondary.

With an eye on growing its public finance business, New York City-based broker-dealer Lebenthal & Co. LLC has hired William Ludolph to head its municipal underwriting efforts.

A quiet trading session precedes a hefty primary calendar in the municipal market Tuesday.

Table as of: 12/03/2012 09:53 AM Invisible Supply Issuer and purpose Amount

ILLINOIS

ARIZONA

Transportation experts and lobbyists believe anointed House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster will make financing issue a bigger focus than the man he will replace.

Investors, waiting for the coming calendar and armed with cash were expected to light up the secondary market with activity this week, but instead, traders report that all has been quiet on the buying front.

A bump in anticipated primary volume should spur the municipal market for the first week of December. But while the market gears up for the coming deals, Monday's session has started flat.

Table as of: 11/30/2012 09:56 AM Invisible Supply Issuer and purpose Amount

ILLINOIS

ALABAMA

A pair of New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority offerings totaling more than $1 billion will dominate the primary market this week amid an array of other sizable offerings from Texas, Colorado, and New York.

Hurricane Sandy and a presidential election helped to pare municipal bond issuance by 20% for the month of November, breaking from the surging volume numbers that have dominated most of 2012.

Moody’s Investors Service placed the Aa2 long-term bond ratings of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, under review for possible downgrade.

The toll of Hurricane Sandy on the Eastern Seaboard's transportation infrastructure underscores the need to fund both annual maintenance and "generational" infrastructure projects, said John Porcari of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Alabama prices $340 million of new Garvee bonds Wednesday as part of Gov. Robert Bentley's Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program.

Spending on transportation infrastructure construction is likely to grow a modest 3% next year to a total of $130.3 billion, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's annual forecast.

The ability to fast-track stalled projects as well as create jobs is making the design-build-finance model attractive to states, panelists said at The Bond Buyer's annual transportation and P3 conference.