Municipal Monthly: September 2026

August issuance topped $60 billion and pushed the long end to within 15bp of its cheapest level in four years, leaving high-grade 5s closing in on 5.00% at par. Municipals have rallied each of the last three times that threshold was hit, and this month's update asks whether the playbook works again. Also in this edition, we look at Fitch's warning that hospital operating margins may have already peaked, the multi-notch downgrades S&P handed 27 Iowa school districts, and what the eleventh-hour highway funding extension means for GARVEE bondholders. We close in Florida, where a steady drip of school district downgrades points to a national story about school choice programs pulling students, and the state dollars that follow them, out of public schools.

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