Houston, U. of Colorado, others price as yields trend lower

Billions of dollars of new paper hit on the market on Thursday, as yields began moving down for the first time this week.

Primary market
Goldman Sachs priced the city of Houston’s $545.22 million of public improvement and refunding bonds on Thursday. The bonds were priced to yield from 1.84% with a 5% coupon in 2020 to 3.41% with a 4% coupon in 2037. The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA by Fitch Ratings.

Morgan Stanley is scheduled to price the Florida Development Finance Corp.’s $600 million of surface transportation facility revenue bonds for the Brightline Passenger Rail Project South Segment. The deal is not rated. As of press time, the syndicate desk said they are still in the process of pricing the deal and it's still expected to come to market Thursday.

Since 2007, the Florida DFC has issued roughly $1.7 billion of bonds. Prior to this year, the most issuance occurred in 2013 when it sold $204 million of bonds. It issued the least amount of debt in 2007 when it sold $18.2 million.

BB-120117-MUN

Wells Fargo priced the Regents of the University of Colorado’s $480.39 million of enterprise refunding revenue bonds. The bonds were priced to yield from 1.21% with a 5% coupon in 2018 to 3.22% with a 4% coupon in 2039. A term bond in 2043 was priced to yield 3.29% with a 4% coupon and a term bond in 2046 was priced to yield 3.58% with a 3.50% coupon. The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s and AA-plus by Fitch.

In the competitive sector, Washington State sold $499.09 million of various purpose general obligation refunding bonds. The deal was won by Morgan Stanley with a true interest cost of 3.03%. The bonds were priced to yield 1.16% with a 5% coupon in 2018 and from 1.93% with a 5% coupon in 2023 to 2.80% with a 5% coupon in 2035. The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s, AA-plus by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission sold a total of $338.61 million in two separate sales. Morgan Stanley won the $217.025 million offering with a TIC of 3.788% and won the $121.585 million deal with a TIC of 3.81%. No pricing information was immediately available. The deals are rated Aa3 by Moody’s and AA-minus by S&P.

Secondary market
The MBIS municipal non-callable 5% GO benchmark scale was stronger in trading through midday on Thursday.

The 10-year muni benchmark yield fell to 2.423% on Thursday from the final read of 2.450% on Wednesday, according to Municipal Bond Information Services. The MBIS 30-year benchmark muni yield decreased to 2.914% from 2.937%.

The MBIS benchmark index is updated hourly on the Bond Buyer Data Workstation.

Top-rated municipals were stronger on Thursday around midday. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was between three and five basis points lower from 2.21% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield decreased between four and six basis points from 2.85%, according to a read of Municipal Market Data’s triple-A scale.

U.S. Treasuries were weaker on Thursday around midday. The yield on the two-year Treasury nudged up to 1.78% from 1.76%, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.42% from 2.37% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury jumped to 2.85% from 2.81%.

On Wednesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 93.1% compared with 92.4% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 101.2% versus 101.9%, according to MMD.

Tax-exempt money market funds saw outflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced outflows of $596.3 million, bringing total net assets to $129.17 billion in the week ended Nov. 27, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an inflow of $568.4 million to $129.76 billion in the previous week.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the 198 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds increased to 0.50% from 0.49% in the previous week.

The total net assets of the 831 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $22.77 billion to $2.629 trillion in the week ended Nov. 28, after an inflow of $20.31 billion to $2.606 trillion the week before.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds was unchanged at 0.73% from the prior week.

Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,029 weekly reporting money funds increased $22.18 billion to $2.758 trillion in the week ended Nov. 28, after inflows of $20.88 billion to $2.736 trillion in the prior week.

Bond Buyer reports 30-day visible supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased 1.326 billion to $16.96 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $5.64 billion of competitive sales and $11.32 billion of negotiated deals.

MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 48,863 trades on Wednesday on volume of $14.097 billion.

Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation. Click here for a brief tour of the Workstation, or contact Vanessa Kim at 212-803-8474 for more information.

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Primary bond market Secondary bond market City of Houston, TX Florida Development Finance Corp. State of Washington
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