MQT - Is The Municipal Bond Market Sleepy?! Pension Doomsday?
By Patricia Healy, CFA
Today's municipal bond market is anything but "sleepy," as Spencer Jakab characterized it in his Wall Street Journal article, "Prophet of Muni Market Doom Wasn't Wrong, Just Early" (10/26/2018). The Prophet of Doom he referred to was Meredith Whitney, who shortly before the financial crisis successfully predicted the damage to Citibank by bad mortgages. In 2010, on 60 Minutes, she contended that municipal market participants were not addressing or recognizing pension risk that would contribute to "50 to 100 sizable defaults" on municipal bonds over the next year. This comment