As expected, PR G.O.s are staging a significant relief rally in the wake of the recent investor webcast. And, as you may have heard, Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr and his team filed the City’s Plan of Debt Adjustment last week. To the dismay of the muni bond community, the proposed treatment of G.O. ULT bondholders deemed “unsecured†did not change materially from the initial proposal.
Month: February 2014
Puerto Rico’s Latest Investor Webcast: Early Takeaways
The Puerto Rico Government Development Bank (GDB) hosted another investor webcast on Tuesday. This article includes a discussion of the primary take-aways from the call, including the Commonwealth’s announcements that it will come to market in March with approximately $2.8 billion of tax-exempt general obligation (GO) bonds – its first public sale since the PREPA deal in August of 2012.
Looking for an Expensive House? Go West…
By Mardee Handler, managing editor California is home to four of the five most expensive housing markets"
Puerto Rico: The Next Emerging Market Credit?
[Editor’s Note: Due to new constraints on Triet Nguyen’s schedule, Muni Bond Insights will now be published once a week on Wednesdays] All it took was an extremely dovish testimony by incoming Federal Reserve chairperson Janet Yellen and a shockingly bipartisan...
States Outspend Revenues in 2012
Earn more; spend less: a formula for financial improvement that is much simpler in concept than in reality, particularly for states against the backdrop of today’s economy. While states were able to cut back on expenditures in 2012, revenues also declined. In fact, as...
What Have We Learned from the Great Home Real Estate Recession?
by guest contributor, Peter Fugiel, Ph.D. The U.S. Owner-Occupancy Rate is a Stubborn Fact of Life, Changing Slowly over Time The 1950’s suburbia craze of building mostly detached units was the one real exception in the housing sector. Homeownership rates in the U.S....
No Car… No Problem in These Top Public Transit Cities
The Big Apple was recently identified as the best U.S. city for public transportation by Walk Score, which ranked public transit options in 316 cities across the country. Whether you agree or disagree with Walk Score’s methodology for ranking transit systems, it’s hard to dispute the overriding notion that public transportation plays an increasingly important role in communities of all size across the nation.
Puerto Rico after the Downgrade: What Now?
The first shoe has dropped. Last night, Standard & Poor’s ended months of market speculation by finally downgrading the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s G.O. debt from BBB- to BB+, i.e. below investment-grade. The GDB’s rating was also cut to BB. Both ratings remain...
State of Illinois Credit under the Spotlight
Welcome to the lunar Year of the Horse. We promise to keep the equine references to a minimum, even though this weekend’s Superbowl certainly didn’t go well for a certain herd of Broncos. On Wednesday, the FOMC held its last meeting under the reins of...