The Bond Buyer’s weekly yield indexes declined this week, as gains experienced through Wednesday withstood yesterday’s losses.
“Bonds seem to be going away; there’s sort of a flattening trend in the marketplace,” said George Strickland, managing director and portfolio manager at Thornburg Investment Management. “They’re supposedly going into retail hands, but we’ll see if they stay there or come back to institutional.”
Leading the new-issue market this week, New York City sold $900 million of tax-exempt general obligation debt priced by Citi Tuesday, followed by $561 million of taxable Build America Bonds priced by JPMorgan yesterday.
The city also competitively sold $87.3 million of taxable debt yesterday to Morgan Keegan & Co.
The Bond Buyer 20-bond index of 20-year GO yields declined five basis points this week to 4.19%. That is the lowest level for the index since Oct. 8, 2009, when it was 4.06%. The index has now declined five consecutive weeks for a cumulative decline of 22 basis points.
The 11-bond index of higher-grade 20-year GO yields dropped six basis points this week to 3.91%, which is the lowest it has been since Oct. 8, when it was 3.80%. It also has declined five weeks in a row, for a cumulative loss of 23 basis points.
The revenue bond index, which measures 30-year revenue bond yields, fell five basis points this week to 4.93%. That is the lowest level for the index since Oct. 22, when it was 4.87%. It has fallen three weeks in a row.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose nine basis points this week to 3.48%, which is the highest it has been since Nov. 5, when it was 3.54%.
The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond gained 16 basis points this week to 4.49%. This is the highest the 30-year yield has been since Aug. 6, when it was 4.53%.
The Bond Buyer one-year note index, which is based on one-year tax-exempt note yields, fell three basis points to an all-time low of 0.49%. The previous record low was 0.52% last week. The index began on July 12, 1989.
The weekly average yield to maturity on The Bond Buyer’s 40-bond municipal bond index, which is based on 40 long-term municipal bond prices, finished at 5.37%, down six basis points from last week’s 5.43%.
