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Massachusetts will soon enact a fiduciary standard on brokers when they make investment recommendations to customers, becoming the first state to impose such regulations, Pensions&Investments reported. Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin on Friday filed final regulations that will require broker-dealers and their agents to provide investment advice and recommendations "without regard to the financial or any other interest of any party other than the customer." The regulations take effect March 6 and enforcement will begin Sept. 1. They do not impact investment advisers, who are already held to a fiduciary standard. Galvin proposed the regulations last year after the Securities and Exchange Commission approved its own rule package, commonly known as Reg BI, for its centerpiece best-interest standard that aims to compel brokers to put clients' financial interests ahead of their own and requires them to mitigate financial conflicts. Among other concerns, critics say the term "best interest" is not defined in Reg BI, which opens it up to manipulation. The SEC regulation goes into effect June 30.

Bondholders crossed another hurdle in their years-long battle with distressed-debt investor Lynn Tilton, after a federal judge ruled that the financier can be forced to sell her portfolio companies to repay about $1.8 billion in bonds, Bloomberg News reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Karen B. Owens rejected Tilton’s claim that a 2018 deal with bondholders only required Tilton to “monetize” the portfolio companies, not actually complete a sale. Tilton also claimed that under the deal, Owens did not have the power to force a sale without her consent. That interpretation “would lead to an absurd result,” Judge Owens said yesterday in court. “We have now crossed another speed bump on the road to monetize the portfolio,” Owens added. “I anticipate there will be more.” Starting in 2003 Tilton put together three collateralized loan funds called Zohar I, II & III that borrowed $2.5 billion in order to buy distressed companies and distressed loans. About $1.8 billion of that debt matured without being repaid, according to court documents. The bondholders, including Bardin Hill Investment Partners and bond insurer MBIA Inc., have been fighting Tilton in bankruptcy court, arguing that she is dragging her feet on the sale of the portfolio companies, which she controls. Tilton says that she has hired investment bankers to start the sale process, and won’t be rushed into a bad deal.

Investors are heading into this year still eager for municipal bonds after a 2019 buying binge supercharged returns, the Wall Street Journal reported. High-income households looking for tax relief drove record inflows into muni-bond mutual funds last year, with the S&P Municipal Bond Index up 7.26 percent during the 12 months ended Dec. 31. Some analysts project that muni-bond mutual funds will continue that growth in 2020. In addition to investor demand, a lack of issuance from cities and states has also driven up prices. Following a decade of tight government budgets and new limitations on borrowing, tax-exempt debt outstanding fell slightly in the roughly $4 trillion bond market. Municipal borrowers, barred by the 2017 tax overhaul from accessing the tax exemption for certain early refinancings, instead sold taxable debt, doubling last year’s taxable issuance to about $65 billion and draining tax-exempt bonds from the market. Expectations of continued low rates around the world have left investors willing to pay handsomely for muni bonds, including those that don’t throw off tax-exempt interest.

Investors are heading into this year still eager for municipal bonds after a 2019 buying binge supercharged returns, the Wall Street Journal reported. High-income households looking for tax relief drove record inflows into muni-bond mutual funds last year, with the S&P Municipal Bond Index up 7.26 percent during the 12 months ended Dec. 31. Some analysts project that muni-bond mutual funds will continue that growth in 2020. In addition to investor demand, a lack of issuance from cities and states has also driven up prices. Following a decade of tight government budgets and new limitations on borrowing, tax-exempt debt outstanding fell slightly in the roughly $4 trillion bond market. Municipal borrowers, barred by the 2017 tax overhaul from accessing the tax exemption for certain early refinancings, instead sold taxable debt, doubling last year’s taxable issuance to about $65 billion and draining tax-exempt bonds from the market. Expectations of continued low rates around the world have left investors willing to pay handsomely for muni bonds, including those that don’t throw off tax-exempt interest.

hatever nickname ultimately gets attached to the now-ending Twenty-tens, on Wall Street and across Corporate America it arguably should be tagged as the “Decade of Debt,” according to a Reuters commentary. With interest rates locked in at rock-bottom levels courtesy of the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policy after the financial crisis, companies found it cheaper than ever to tap the corporate bond market to load up on cash. Bond issuance by American companies topped $1 trillion in each year of the decade that began on Jan. 1, 2010, and ends on Tuesday at midnight, an unmatched run, according to SIFMA, the securities industry trade group. In all, corporate bond debt outstanding rocketed more than 50 percent and will soon top $10 trillion, versus about $6 trillion at the end of the previous decade. The largest U.S. companies — those in the S&P 500 Index — account for roughly 70 percent of that, nearly $7 trillion.