The municipal bond market is all but dead Friday, following a very quiet Thursday, with many desks short-staffed before the holiday, as focus shifts to next week's new issue calendar.
With the upcoming week being a holiday-shortened week, volume isn't expected to be astronomical and on the negotiated side there aren't too many large deals.
Primary Market
Traders are awaiting next week's supply, hoping yield curves have steadied and won't jump significantly.
Topping next week's negotiated calendar is the New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority's $475 million of refunding bonds. The deal is scheduled to be priced by Citi on Thursday and is rated Aa2 by Moody's Investors Service and AA-plus by both Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.
The board of regents of the University of Texas is also coming to market with $200 million of refunding bonds. The deal is scheduled to be priced by Barclay's Capital on Wednesday and is rated triple-A by Moody's, S&P and Fitch.
On the competitive side, Fairfax County, Va., is coming with $229.9 million of public improvement bonds. The deal is scheduled to be bid on Wednesday and is rated triple-A by Moody's, S&P and Fitch.
The other large competitive deal on the docket is $150 million of general obligation bonds from New Mexico. It is scheduled to go for bids on Tuesday and is rated triple-A by Moody's.
Secondary Market
Treasury prices were lower on Friday. The two-year Treasury note's yield inched up to 0.64% from 0.63% on Thursday, while the 10-year yield rose to 2.01% from 1.99% and the 30-year yield increased to 2.61% from 2.57%.
Prices of top-rated munis finished flat on Thursday. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was unchanged from 2.04% on Wednesday, while the yield on 30-year GO was flat at 2.86%, according to the final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
Since the start of the month, the yield on the muni 10-year benchmark general obligation has risen 30 basis points, while yield on the 30-year GO is 36 basis points higher, according to MMD.
The 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 103.0% on Thursday versus 102.6% on Wednesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 111.6% compared to 111.7%.
Bond Buyer Visible Supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar rose $1.368 billion to $9.195 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $1.892 billion competitive sales and $7.303 billion of negotiated deals.
MSRB Reports Previous Session's Activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 39,422 trades on Thursday on volume of $11.496 billion. Most active on Thursday, based on the number of trades, was the St. Charles County, Mo., Public Water Supply District No. 2 lessee certificates of participation series 2015 3.625s of 2037, which traded 176 times at an average price of 99.488, with an average yield of 3.658%.
Tax-Exempt Bond Funds Report Inflows
Municipal bond funds which report weekly posted $460.253 million of inflows in the week ended Feb. 11, after seeing inflows of $589.132 million in the week ended Feb. 4, according to the latest Lipper data.
The four-week moving average remained positive at $687.287 million in the latest week after being in the green at $735.354 million in the prior week. A moving average is an analytical tool used to smooth out price changes by filtering out fluctuations.
Muni bond funds have experienced inflows in each week of 2015, according to Lipper data. Inflows for the year total $4.740 billion.
Long-term muni bond funds saw inflows of $132.296 million in the latest week, after experiencing inflows of $373.103 million in the previous week.
High-yield muni funds recorded outflows of $187.026 million in the latest reporting week, after seeing inflows of $164.196 million in the prior week. It was the first outflow since Dec. 31, 2014.
Exchange-traded funds had inflows of $109.534 million, after recording inflows of $166.656 million in the previous week.
In contrast, long-term municipal bond mutual funds saw $963 million of inflows in the week ended Feb. 4, according to the Investment Company Institute. ICI reported that inflows into long-term funds were $1.275 billion in the week ended Jan. 28.
Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds Saw $766M Inflow
Tax-exempt money market funds saw assets rise by $766.0 million to $260.409 billion in the week ended Feb. 10, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. In the previous week, funds saw outflows of $1.215 billion as assets fell to $259.643 billion.
The average, seven-day yield for the 396 weekly reporting tax-exempt money funds held steady at 0.01% for the 93rd week in a row.
The total net assets of the 992 weekly reporting taxable money funds rose $6.964 billion to $2.454 trillion in the week ended Feb. 10, after seeing a decline of $10.159 billion to $2.447 trillion in the prior week.
The average seven-day yield for the taxable funds was unchanged at 0.02% for the fourth straight week -- after spending 87 weeks at 0.01%.
Overall the combined total net assets of the 1,388 weekly reporting money funds increased by $7.730 billion to $2.714 trillion after experiencing a loss of $11.374 billion to $2.707 trillion in the previous week.
