NEW YORK – The California municipal market was slightly weaker this morning, ahead of an early market close and the ensuing long weekend in observance of President’s Day.
“Just a pretty quiet day, I’d say,” a trader in San Francisco said. “Bonds cheapened up a little bit, but nothing too crazy. Hadn’t really seen any cheapening in a little while, but there wasn’t a whole lot of trading, so we’ll see what happens Tuesday when we get back out there.”
The Treasury market showed losses today. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which opened at 2.78%, was recently quoted at 2.90%.The yield on the two-year note was quoted recently at 0.97%, after opening at 0.91%. And the yield on the 30-year bond, which opened at 3.50%, was quoted recently at 3.68%.
In economic data released today, the University of Michigan's preliminary February consumer sentiment index reading was 56.2, compared to the final January 61.2 reading. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had predicted a 61.0 reading for the index.
Next week, a slate of economic data will be released. Wednesday, January import prices, January housing starts, and January building permits will be released, along with January industrial production, and capacity utilization for January. Then, Thursday, initial jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 14 and continuing jobless claims for the week ended Feb. 7 will be released, alongside the January producer price index, the January PPI core, and the composite index of leading economic indicators for January. And Friday, the January consumer price index and January core CPI will be released.
Economists polled by Thomson Reuters are predicting a 1.4% drop in import prices, 530,000 housing starts, 530,000 building permits, a 1.5% decline in industrial production, 72.5% capacity utilization, 620,000 initial jobless claims, 4.850 million continuing jobless claims, a 0.2% rise in PPI, a 0.1% climb in PPI core, no change to the LEI, a 0.3% uptick in CPI, and a 0.1% increase in core CPI.
Activity in the California new-issue market was light today.
Previous Session's Activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported California 5s of 2038 as yesterday’s most active. They traded 89 times at a high of 95.567 and a low of 91.961.
