The municipal bond market saw Empire State Development sell almost $2 billion of bonds in five competitive offerings on Thursday as the market focused on tax changes being worked on in Washington.
Tax-exempt
Primary market
In the competitive arena, ESD sold $1.76 billion of general purpose state personal income tax revenue bonds for the New York State Urban Development Corp.
Morgan Stanley won the $585.35 million of Series 2017D taxable Maturity Group 1 bonds with a true interest cost of 2.8902%.
Jefferies won the $433.49 million of Series 2017D taxable Maturity Group 2 bonds with a TIC of 3.4042%. Pricing information was not immediately available.
JPMorgan Securities won the $302.73 million of Series 2017C tax-exempt Maturity Group 3 bonds with a TIC of 3.6169%. Pricing information was not immediately available.
Morgan Stanley won the $225.07 million of Series 2017C tax-exempt Maturity Group 2 bonds with a TIC of 3.2060%. Pricing information was not immediately available.
Morgan Stanley won the $211.92 million of Series 2017C tax-exempt Maturity Group 1 bonds with a TIC of 1.9476%. Pricing information was not immediately available.
The deals are rated AAA by S&P Global Ratings and AA-plus by Fitch Ratings.
Since 2007, the ESDC has issued roughly $19.47 billion of bonds, with the most issuance before this year occurring in 2013 when it sold $3.28 billion of bonds. The corporation did not come to market in 2012.
In the negotiated sector, JPMorgan priced Partners Healthcare System’s $778.26 million of Series 2017 revenue bonds for two issuers.
The New Hampshire Health and Education Facilities Authority’s $103.56 million revenue bonds were priced as 5s to yield from 1.61% in 2019 to 3.05% in 2037 and 3.10% in 2041.
The $674.695 million of Massachusetts Development Finance Agency’s Series 2017S revenue bonds were priced to yield from 1.61% with a 5% coupon in 2019 to 3.05% with a 5% coupon in 2037. A 2041 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.45% and a 2047 maturity was priced as 5s to yield 3.16%.
The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s and AA-minus by S&P.
BOK Financial Securities priced the West Travis County Public Utility Agency, Texas’ $151.73 million of Series 2017 revenue refunding bonds.
The issue was priced to yield from 1.52% with a 2% coupon in 2018 to 3.32% with a 4% coupon in 2037. A 2041 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.39% and a 2045 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.43%.
The deal is insured by Build America Mutual and rated AA by S&P.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is expected to price Philadelphia’s $721 million of Series 2017A non-AMT and Series 2017B AMT airport revenue and refunding bonds.
The deal is rated A1 by Moody’s Investors Service and A by S&P and Fitch.
Morgan Stanley received the written award on Wisconsin’s $347.03 million of GO refunding bonds of 2017 Series 3.
The issue was priced to yield from 2.10% with a 5% coupon in 2026 to 2.91% with a 4% coupon in 2034.
The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s, AA by S&P and AA-plus by Fitch and Kroll Bond Rating Agency.
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $12.95B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $2.76 billion to $12.95 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $2.40 billion of competitive sales and $10.55 billion of negotiated deals.
Secondary trading
The MBIS municipal non-callable 5% GO benchmark scale was stronger in midday trading.
The 10-year muni benchmark yield fell to 2.283% on Thursday from the final read of 2.287% on Wednesday, according to
The MBIS benchmark index, which is comprised of investment-grade municipal securities, is updated hourly on the
Top-rated municipal bonds were stronger at mid-session. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation fell as much as two basis points from 2.01% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield dropped two to four basis points from 2.61%, according to a read of MMD’s triple-A scale.
U.S. Treasuries were mixed on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose to 1.82% from 1.79%, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.37% from 2.36% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury decreased to 2.74% from 2.75%.
On Wednesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 85.5% compared with 85.4% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 95.4% versus 96.4%, according to MMD.
MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 51,365 trades on Wednesday on volume of $20.86 billion.
Tax-exempt money market funds saw inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced inflows of $271.3 million, bringing total net assets to $130.50 billion in the week ended Dec. 11, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
This followed an inflow of $1.06 million to $130.23 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 199 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds increased to 0.53% from 0.51% in the previous week.
The total net assets of the 827 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $34.30 billion to $2.682 trillion in the week ended Dec. 12, after an inflow of $18.54 billion to $2.648 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds rose to 0.76% from 0.74% from the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,026 weekly reporting money funds increased $34.57 billion to $2.813 trillion in the week ended Dec. 12, after inflows of $19.60 billion to $2.778 trillion in the prior week.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
