Market Post: Munis Steady Ahead of Georgia Pricing

NEW YORK – After both rising and falling this week, the tax-exempt market was steady Thursday morning. The market took a breather ahead of one of the last biggest deals of the week — from triple-A rated Georgia — to be sold in the competitive market.

Munis were steady Thursday morning, according to the Municipal Market Data scale. On Wednesday, the 10-year tax-exempt yield closed at 1.86% for the fourth consecutive trading session while the two-year yield finished flat at 0.32% for the 14th straight session. The 30-year yield rose two basis points to 3.17%.

Treasuries were stronger on weak economic data. The benchmark 10-year yield fell four basis points to 1.61% while the 30-year yield dropped five basis points to 2.67%. The two-year fell one basis point to 0.31%.

In the competitive market, triple-A rated Georgia is expected to auction $600 million of general obligation bonds in two pricings – $520.1 million and $79.9 million.

The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority of New York will auction $195.6 million of revenue bonds in five pricings  — $30.4 million, $37.5 million, $38.7 million, $43.8 million, and $45.2 million. The bonds are rated AA-minus by Standard & Poor’s.

In economic news, seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims fell 2,000 to 387,000 for the week ending June 16 while continuing claims for the previous week remained at 3.299 million.

The 387,000 initial claims were higher than the 380,000 estimated by economists. The 3.299 million continuing claims also came in higher than the 3.280 million economists had expected.

“The four-week average of initial jobless claims has crept higher over the last four weeks to its highest level since late April,” wrote economists at RDQ Economics. “This reading is for the week in which the payroll survey is conducted and there is no suggestion in these data that the pace of net job creation picked up in June. As we head to July, initial claims are likely to become distorted by the pattern of summer shutdowns and claims may become a less reliable indicator of activity in the labor market but there appears to be nothing unusual in this week’s data.”

In other economics news, existing home sales fell 1.5% in May to a seasonally adjusted 4.55 million-unit rate. Sales failed to meet the 4.57 million predicted by economists.

Also, the Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index slipped to negative 16.6 in June from negative 5.8 in May. The index came in below analysts’ expectations of a reading of 1.0 for the index.

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