Top-rated municipal bonds were unchanged at mid-session, traders said, as the last of this week's big new issues came to market, led by bond sales from issuers in New York and California.
Ramirez & Co. priced the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's $493 million of 195th and 196th series of consolidated bonds.
The $293.22 million of the 195th Series was priced to yield from 0.80% with a 4% coupon in 2017 to 2.10% with a 5% and 2% at par in a split 2026 maturity; a 2035 maturity was priced as 5s to yield 2.73% and a 2036 maturity was priced as 5s to yield 2.79%. A 2016 maturity was offered as a sealed bid.
The $200 million of the 196th Series was priced at par to yield from 2.125% in 2027 to 2.625% in 2034.
The deal, which is subject to the alternative minimum tax, is rated Aa3 by Moody's Investors Service and AA-minus by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.
Since 2006, Port Authority has issued $23.2 billion of debt, with over $2 billion of bonds sold in 2007, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2015. The smallest issuance year was 2008, when the authority sold $1.6 billion.
Siebert Brandford Shank priced the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's $274.57 million of Series 2016A power system revenue bonds.
The issue was priced to yield from 0.64% with 4% and 5% coupons in a split 2018 maturity to 2.12% with a 5% coupon in 2031; as 5s to yield 2.25% in 2033; as 5s to yield from 2.36% in 2035 to 2.49% in 2038; a 2040 maturity was priced as 5s to yield 2.52% and a 2046 maturity was priced as 5s to yield 2.61%.
The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody's, AA-minus by S&P and Fitch.
In the competitive arena, Milwaukee sold $293.77 million of notes and bonds in three separate sales.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch won the won the $176.24 million deal with a true interest cost of 2.06%. The deal consists of $133.51 million of Series 2016N2 general obligation promissory notes and $42.73 million of Series 2016B3 GO corporate purpose bonds.
The Series 2016N2 notes were priced to yield from 0.57% with a 2% coupon in 2017 to 1.86% with a 4% coupon in 2026. The Series 2016B3 bonds were priced to yield from 2.25% with a 2% coupon in 2027 to 3.05% with a 3% coupon in 2033.
FTN Financial won the $27.53 million of Series 2016T4 taxable GO corporate purpose bonds with a TIC of 2.32%. Pricing information was not available.
Both deals are rated Aa3 by Moody's and AA by S&P and Fitch.
Milwaukee also sold $90 million of Series 2016R1 revenue anticipation notes. Morgan Stanley won the notes with a bid of 1.50% and premium of $512,100, an effective rate of 0.521490%.
The RANs are rated MIG1 by Moody's, SP1-plus by S&P and F1-plus by Fitch.
Since 2006, the city has sold about $4.6 billion of bonds and notes, with the most issuance occurring in 2010 when it sold $604.3 million and the least issuance in 2007 when it sold $303.8 million.
Bond Buyer Visible Supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $2.07 billion to $11.23 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $5.72 billion of competitive sales and $5.51 billion of negotiated deals.
Secondary Market
The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was unchanged from 1.58% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni yield dropped one basis point to 2.53% from 2.54%, according to a read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
U.S. Treasuries were slightly stronger on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury slipped to 0.74% from 0.75% on Wednesday, while the 10-year Treasury yield inched down to 1.78% from 1.79% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond fell to 2.63% from 2.66%.
The 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 88.6% on Wednesday compared with 87.9% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 95.7% versus 95.5%, according to MMD.
MSRB Previous Session's Activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 40,439 trades on Wednesday on volume of $12.27 billion.
Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds See Outflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced outflows of $1.71 billion, bringing total net assets to $216.04 billion in the week ended May 2, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an outflow of $3.85 billion to $217.75 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 296 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds rose to 0.06% from 0.05% in the previous week.
The total net assets of the 892 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $6.88 billion to $2.483 trillion in the week ended May 3, after an inflow of $18.87 billion to $2.476 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds was unchanged from 0.10% in the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,188 weekly reporting money funds increased $5.17 billion to $2.699 trillion in the period ended April 26, which followed an inflow of $15.02 billion to $2.694 trillion.
