California dreamin’ as Golden State deals dominate the slate

Top-rated municipals bonds were mixed at mid-session, traders said, as several big deals from California issuers were closing out the week’s new issue slate.

Primary market
Citigroup priced the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s $181.65 million of Series 2017B fixed-rate subordinate water revenue bonds.

The bonds were priced to yield from 1.05% with 3% and 5% coupons in a split 2020 maturity to 1.49% with 4% and 5% coupons in a split 2024 maturity.

The deal is rated AA-plus by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch as senior manager received the written award on the city of Los Angeles, Calif.’s $949.06 million of 2017 tax and revenue anticipation notes.

The city and BAML agreed to a direct purchase with an affiliate of the lead manager for $500 million of the deal.

The TRANs were priced as 5s to yield 0.93% in 2018.

The deal is rated MIG1 by Moody’s Investors Service and SP1-plus by S&P.

In the competitive arena, the city and county of San Francisco, Calif., sold $397.05 million of Series 2017B certificates of participation for the Moscone Convention Center expansion project.

BAML won the bonds with a true interest cost of 3.33%. The issue was priced to yield from 1.06% with a 5% coupon in 2019 to 3.28% with a 4% coupon in 2038; a 2042 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.44%.

The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s and AA by S&P and Fitch.

Since 2007 San Francisco has sold roughly $5.28 billion of securities, with the highest issuance in 2012 when it sold $663 million.

The issuance was lowest in 2007 when it sold $154 million. With Thursday’s sale, San Francisco has surpassed last year’s issuance total.

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Bond Buyer reports 30-day visible supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $2.57 billion to $7.59 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $2.75 billion of competitive sales and $4.83 billion of negotiated deals.

Secondary market
The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was unchanged from 1.86% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield fell as much as one basis point from 2.70%, according to a read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.

Treasuries were little changed on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury dipped to 1.34% from 1.35% on Wednesday, the 10-year Treasury yield gained to 2.16% from 2.15% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond increased to 2.73% from 2.72%.

The 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 86.3% on Wednesday, compared with 86.5% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 99.2% versus 98.7%, according to MMD.

MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 42,537 trades on Wednesday on volume of $15.52 billion.

Tax-exempt money market funds see inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced inflows of $41.9 million, bringing total net assets to $129.71 billion in the week ended June 19, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

This followed an outflow of $764.1 million to $129.67 billion in the previous week.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the 232 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds jumped to 0.34% from 0.30% in the previous week.

The total net assets of the 851 weekly reporting taxable money funds decreased $39.28 billion to $2.457 trillion in the week ended June 20, after an outflow of $5.24 billion to $2.496 trillion the week before.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds increased to 0.57% from 0.49% in the prior week.

Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,083 weekly reporting money funds decreased $39.24 billion to $2.586 trillion in the week ended June 20, after outflows of $6.01 billion to $2.626 trillion in the prior week.

Jacob Schneider contributed to this report.

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Primary bond market Secondary bond market City of Los Angeles, CA
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