Wall Street was down on Friday morning, marking a negative start to the first trading day of 2015. Wednesday was the last trading day of 2014, and though Wall Street ended lower on the day, major indexes logged in another year of gains. The S&P 500 rose 11.4% in 2014, while the Nasdaq saw a 13.4% gain, and the Dow gained 7.5%. Energy prices dragged on market gains at the end of 2014, and the depressed prices are continuing into 2015, with falling energy stocks erasing early gains on Friday morning. Things were not positive in macro news this week, as initial jobless claims came in higher than the expected 290,000 at 298,000. December manufacturing numbers were released on Friday morning, coming in at 55.5, compared to the 57.5 expectation. Yields on 10-Year Treasuries fell from Monday to Wednesday, having started off at 2.22 and closed out Wednesday at 2.17. During this shortened trading week, Moody's did not make any upgrades or downgrades to municipal bond ratings, but municipal bonds still made their way into a few financial headlines. Below, we look at some muni news highlights.
Munis in the News
Muni Bond Sales in December
Ken Kohn at Bloomberg reported that muni bond sales for December were in excess of $43 billion, marking the highest monthly sales in the past year. Municipal bond sales last year were just $35.2 billion, meaning December 2014's marked a 24% gain year-over-year. Read the rest of Ken's article here.
Higher Yearly Sales
Reuters reported that 2014's municipal bond sales were higher than sales in 2013. The article cites preliminary data, which points to a 1% increase in sales year-over-year. 2013 saw muni sales of $311.86 billion, while 2014 saw $314.95 billion. Read more about how municipal bonds performed this year in the original article.