A “very tight” job market and unabated inflation might require the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sooner than expected and begin reducing its overall asset holdings as a second brake on the economy, U.S. central bank policymakers said in their meeting last month. In a document released on Wednesday that markets took as decidedly hawkish, the minutes from the Dec. 14-15 policy meeting showed Fed officials uniformly concerned about the pace of price increases that promised to persist, alongside global supply bottlenecks “well into” 2022. … The language showed the depth of the consensus that has emerged at the Fed in recent weeks over the need to move against high inflation – not just by raising borrowing costs but by acting with a second lever and reducing the central bank’s holdings of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. The probability that the Fed would lift interest rates in March for the first time since the pandemic’s onset rose to greater than 70%, as tracked by CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
Source: Reuters

Though out-of-state firms helped Topeka’s city government find its last three permanent city managers, the mayor and council members voiced support Tuesday for looking locally this time for a company to help conduct that search. “I really don’t feel we need a national search firm,” said Councilman Neil Dobler. Mayor Mike Padilla and most other members of the nine-person council joined Dobler in voicing support for hiring a search firm that’s local, or at least regional, to help find a replacement for former city manager Brent Trout.
Source: CJonline

The interest rate table above illustrates recent changes in a sample of MBIS “investment grade” yields. Every issuer’s credit is different. For rates that may be applicable to your municipality, contact our Municipal Bond Advisors, Larry Kleeman and Beth Warren.