Municipal bond traders and other market participants return to work after having Wednesday off, and will see a few large deals from issuers in Illinois, California and Virginia.
Primary Market
After the market took off for Veterans Day, the last of the week's supply will hit screens on Thursday, with a few notable large deals left to price.
Citi is scheduled to price Springfield, Ill.'s $498 million of senior-lien electric revenue bonds, which will restructure debt for operating relief and generate traditional present value savings. It is anticipated the deal will mature serially from 2018 to 2035 with a term bond in 2040. Moody's revised its outlook on the city utility's A3 credit to stable from negative and Standard & Poor's affirmed its A rating and stable outlook.
The largest competitive sale on the docket will also take place Thursday as the California Public Works Board will sell roughly $223.15 million of lease revenue bonds for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and California State Prison, Corcoran, and various buildings. The jail bonds are rated A1 by Moody's, A-plus by S&P and A by Fitch Ratings.
The Virginia College Building Authority is selling two separate issues totaling roughly $207.33 million. The larger issue is $154.085 million of educational facilities revenue refunding bonds for the higher education financing program, Series 2015B and the other issue is $53.245 million of educational facilities revenue bonds, series 2015A. Both deals are rated Aa1 by Moody's, AA by S&P and AA-plus by Fitch.
Since 2006, the Virginia CBA has issued roughly $7.60 billion worth of bonds. The years of 2009 and 2012 saw the most issuance with $1.69 billion and $1.05 billion, respectively, while activity in 2008 and 2013 was light, with $144 million and $419 million sold, respectively.
Muni Money Funds Gain $383M
Tax-exempt money market funds rose by $383 million in the week ended Nov. 11, increasing total net assets to $245.56 billion, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
The gains were up slightly from the prior week when total net assets ended at $245.17 billion.
The average, seven-day yield for the 374 weekly reporting tax-free money market funds remained at 0.01% for the 132nd consecutive week, while the average maturity remained at 33 days.
Taxable money funds, meanwhile, added $7.23 billion in new cash as total net assets catapulted to $2.501 trillion in the week ended Nov. 10. The inflows compare to the prior week when taxable money funds ended with $2.494 trillion of total net assets.
The average seven-day yield for the 950 weekly reporting taxable money funds was 0.02% for the 43rd straight week, while the average maturity remained at 38 days.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,324 weekly reporting money funds rose to $2.747 trillion in the week ended Nov. 10. After the arrival of $7.61 billion of inflows — which is up from $2.739 trillion the prior week.
Secondary Market
Treasuries were mixed early Thursday morning, as the yield on the two-year Treasury was flat at 0.87% from Tuesday. The 10-year Treasury yield was also unchanged at 2.33% from Tuesday and the 30-year yield was higher at 3.12% from 3.10%.
On Tuesday, the yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation closed unchanged from 2.19% on Monday, while the 30-year GO was one basis point lower to 3.19% from 3.20% on Monday, according to a final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
The 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated on Tuesday at 94.5% versus 93.2% on Monday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 103.2% compared to 102.8%, according to MMD.
Bond Buyer Visible Supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar rose $1.923 billion to $9.57 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $3.42 billion competitive sales and $6.15 billion of negotiated deals.
Christine Albano contributed to this report
