Markets

Lt. Gov. Dan McKee succeeds her on a day state voters approved seven bond measures totaling $400 million.

Institutional pricing of New York City and competitive deals from Baltimore and Cambridge, Mass., should help give a sense of where yields are heading, while Ohio offers up GOs for a market that's been little changed for three days after a large sell-off.

From the use of taxables to forward deliveries, refunding deals drove an overall 15.8% hike in Midwest bond volume that exceeded the national average.

Municipal bond issuers in the Southwest, despite the pandemic — or perhaps in part because of the conditions it created — set a record for annual issuance.

The sell-off in the back half of February brought negative 1.59% returns for the month and a negative 0.96% return for the year so far. Taxables and high-yields fared slightly better.

The prominent private university will add $600 million to corporate CUSIP deal numbers that recorded a more than 200% increase last year.

Northeast municipal issuers sold $129.99 billion of debt in 2020 amid the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Municipal issuers in the Southwest sold $93.5 billion of debt in 2020, a year in which the coronavirus upended the way bond business is done.

The market took a much-needed breather Friday and U.S. Treasuries pared Thursday's losses to see the 10-year fall 12 basis points to 1.42% and the 30-year 17 basis points to 2.11%. Municipals were steady at 1.14% in 10 years and 1.82% in 30.

While issuance fell significantly from 2020, it was higher than January's and only the fifth time in 35 years that volume exceeded $30 billion in February.