Washington

Nat Singer, senior managing director at Swap Financial Group, will become the new chair of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board on Oct. 1.

Faced with requests from dealers to withdraw its proposed principal trade price disclosure rule, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board now plans to modify that proposal as well as develop an alternative that would require dealers to disclose markups and markdowns on certain principal trades.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board late Friday filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission revised content outlines to its qualification exams for municipal fund securities limited principals, municipal securities representatives, and municipal securities principals that will bring the tests in line with recent MSRB rule changes.

Bankruptcies in Detroit, Jefferson County, Ala., and three California cities helped spawn a new breed of activist judges, who may use Chapter 9 cases as the platform not just for reorganizing municipal debt, but also for helping set the stage for turning distressed cities around.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers has announced nominees for officers and directors of its board as well as the recipients of its awards.

"Detroit's a much better credit than it was two years ago," its former emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, told a municipal bond market group.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans later this year to propose changes to Rules G-37, on political contributions, and G-20, on gifts and gratuities, to extend these dealer rules to municipal advisors, the executive director said on Tuesday.

Proposed rule changes by the Federal Reserve are so restrictive that they would either substantially reduce or exclude municipal securities from being considered high-quality liquid assets in liquidity coverage ratios banks have to meet and, as a result, would hurt the municipal market, dealer groups and issuers are warning.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill Thursday that would provide $1.5 billion of funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission in fiscal year 2016, the same amount as the fiscal 2015 enacted level and $222 million less than the commission requested earlier this year.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board revised its three online information facilities to add references to the self-regulator's core operational hours and highlight the 24/7 availability of a number of the systems' functions.