Washington

With investors now anticipating Wednesday's expected rate cut may be the last one for a while, "an overall bullish paradigm has been seriously weakened," noted Matt Fabian, a partner at Municipal Market Analytics, Inc.

Concerns are rising as the Congressional Budget Office has issued a report laying out the benefits of eliminating tax-exempt qualified private activity bonds.

The continuing resolution through mid-March is expected to include $$90 billion in disaster funding.

A week ahead of inauguration day, Scott Colbert, executive vice president, director of fixed income and chief economist at Commerce Trust, takes a look at how the Federal Reserve and the economy will fare in President-elect Donald Trump's second run in the White House.

Analysts are confident the Fed will lower rates at this week's meeting, but their views on what next year holds don't share the same consensus.

Justices appeared open to narrowing the scope of federal environmental impact reviews during oral arguments on a bond-financed Utah railway to move crude oil.

The future of key policies and upcoming budget battle tactics are taking shape based on several leadership changes and announcements in recent days.

The MSRB is looking for industry input regarding proposed rules changes for Rules G-17, G-32 and G-47.

Most on the Street expect issuance to come in around $500 billion, but a few think volume will be much higher, primarily because of potential changes to the tax exemption. Most firms expect refunding volumes to also grow in 2025.

Municipal investors are more focused on the final new-issues coming down the pike and repositioning books as 2024 heads to a close. ICI reported another week of inflows into municipal bond mutual funds.