Investments

Investors in municipal credit need to make an important distinction between rated government bodies and unrated speculative credits, analysts from Fitch Ratings said at a conference yesterday.

ARKANSASFayetteville Municipal Property Owners' Improvement District No. 19Nov 16, 2009 . . . . . . $720,000

ILLINOISDes Plaines (City)Nov 16, 2009 . . . . . . $3,945,000

Invesco Ltd. today launches an exchange-traded fund designed to track the performance of taxable Build America Bonds — a potentially transformative product that has helped galvanize public finance in 2009.

LOUISIANAParishwide School District of the Parish of BeauregardNov 12, 2009 . . . . . . $10,000,000

ARIZONAAgua Fria Union High School District No. 216Nov 13, 2009 . . . . . . $8,315,000

WASHINGTON — Brazos Student Finance Corp. wants to be the first student loan lender to ask institutional investors to voluntarily tender, at a discount, illiquid auction-rate securities in exchange for new floating-rate notes, about a year after a much larger and more complex offer failed.

Two deals over $1 billion — one in New York and one in California — will vie for investors’ attention this week as the largest being priced, as activity begins to slow down ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday next week.

Municipal bond mutual funds last week continued to command new money at a pace that was still high but not quite as high as earlier this year.

WASHINGTON — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill next week expects to issue $224 million of tax-exempt debt and Build America Bonds, which will be used to finance or refinance the costs of certain capital projects.

DALLAS — Amid an ambitious expansion plan, the University of North Texas Board of Regents is preparing to issue $180 million of system revenue bonds for its Dallas campus and for a new football stadium at the main campus in Denton.

ALABAMAFairview Governmental Utility Services CorporationNov 9, 2009 . . . . . . $1,780,000

ARKANSASSouth Side School District No. 2 of Van Buren CountyNov 12, 2009 . . . . . . $2,510,000

The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes were mixed during this holiday-shortened week.

Parents picking a charter school for their children want a school they can be confident will not close down. Bondholders want much the same thing.

On the heels of hefty outflows last week, the assets of tax-exempt money market funds dipped by just $649.8 million to settle at $411.57 billion for the week ending Nov. 9, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

CALIFORNIABerkeley Unified School DistrictNov 10, 2009 . . . . . . $25,440,000

CALIFORNIACalifornia Statewide Communities Development AuthorityNov 10, 2009 . . . . . . $1,895,000,000

Brightening economic prospects and improving liquidity helped lift the municipal bond market in the third quarter in spite of numerous credit concerns and the evisceration of the bond insurance industry, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s quarterly report on municipal credit.

ARKANSASBryant School District No. 25 of Saline CountyNov 10, 2009 . . . . . . $14,500,000