Muni Minute: Primary Market Heating Up

After a long holiday filled hiatus, the municipal market is up and running and market participants will see significant issuance for the first time in more than a month. There is an estimated $8.7 billion that will be hitting the market that has seen pent up demand due to very limited action through the holidays.

VOICE OVER: The primary municipal market is starting to ramp back up after a long holiday filled hiatus. The market is expected to see 8.74 billion of issuance, the most that traders have had to work with since the week of November 28th. Municipal bond traders agreed that latent demand is pushing buyers into the market and that a full week with normal issuance should be a good test to see where exactly the market is. The biggest scheduled negotiated deal on the calendar is the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority's 665 million of general revenue and refunding bonds.

The state of Wisconsin is scheduled to hit the market with a 524 million of general fund annual appropriation refunding bonds featuring tax exempts and taxables. In the competitive arena, Washington State will be selling three separate sales totaling 662 million. "Next week's calendar although on the heavy side should attract plenty of interest," said one market source. "There is a fair amount of pent-up demand after a two-week holiday season drought in December. Fund outflows continued but they seem to have slowed, which is a positive for demand," he said. Let's see how it all plays out.

I'm Aaron Weitzman and this is been your Muni Minute.