Market Commentary

Tom Hession 1/1/19 Tom Hession 1/1/19

Slow and Steady

Municipal bond market performance, as measured by the Bloomberg Barclays Municipal Index…

Tom Hession 11/1/18 Tom Hession 11/1/18

Performance: Municipal bonds outperformed corporate bonds in three of the last four Federal Reserve rate tightening…

Tom Hession 6/1/18 Tom Hession 6/1/18

Summer is historically a time of positive muni performance. Due to a significant concentration of maturity, call and…

Tom Hession 1/26/18 Tom Hession 1/26/18

Earlier this week, portions of the Trump Administration’s preliminary infrastructure plans were apparently leaked…

Tom Hession 12/1/17 Tom Hession 12/1/17

As you may have noticed, municipal bond yields have spiked and prices have fallen over the last couple of weeks.

Tom Hession 7/25/17 Tom Hession 7/25/17

What worked best in the first half? Once again, the long end outperformed.

Tom Hession 5/25/17 Tom Hession 5/25/17

As the current legislative session draws to a close, Illinois’ two year budget impasse shows little sign of being resolved.

Tom Hession 3/27/17 Tom Hession 3/27/17

Could tax reform reduce the attractiveness of municipal bonds by capping or reducing the benefits of the…

Tom Hession 12/1/16 Tom Hession 12/1/16

Investors are piling into the reflation trade (and out of bonds) since being caught off guard by Donald Trump’s…

Tom Hession 3/3/16 Tom Hession 3/3/16

When it comes to coverage of the municipal bond market, the media tends to focus on high profile…

Tom Hession 2/22/16 Tom Hession 2/22/16

The Municipal bond market has generally been insulated from recent global market turmoil and…

Tom Hession 10/30/15 Tom Hession 10/30/15

Last week Illinois was downgraded to Baa1 by Moody’s and BBB+ by Fitch. Not surprising given the…