Municipal bond traders are set to see the biggest deal of the week hit the screens on Thursday – the state of California’s $1 billion-plus taxable bond offering.
Secondary market
U.S. Treasuries were weaker on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose to 1.20% from 1.18% on Wednesday, while the 10-year Treasury yield gained to 2.24% from 2.21%, and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond increased to 2.90% from 2.87%.
Top-quality municipal bonds ended mixed on Wednesday. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation rose one basis point to 2.03% from 2.02% on Tuesday, while the 30-year GO yield was unchanged from 2.86%, according to the final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
On Wednesday, the 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 92.1%, compared with 92.9% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 99.9%, versus 100.8%, according to MMD.
MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 43,294 trades on Wednesday on volume of $11.62 billion.
Primary market
JPMorgan Securities is set to price California’s $1.25 billion of general obligation high-speed passenger train taxable bonds on Thursday.
The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-minus by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings.
RBC Capital Markets is expected to price Houston, Texas’ $350 million of Series 2017B combined utility system first lien revenue refunding bonds.
The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s and AA by Fitch.
Since 2007, Houston has issued about $13.66 billion of debt, with the most issuance occurring in 2014 when it sold $2.52 billion of securities. It saw a low of $485 million in 2015, one of only three times the Space City has not issued more than $1 billion in a year in the past decade.
Stifel is set to price the Chino Valley Unified School District, Calif.’s $208 million of Series 2017A election of 2016 Hos.
The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s and A-plus by S&P.
Piper Jaffray is expected to price the Kansas University Hospital Authority’s $200 million of Series 2017 healthcare revenue bonds.
The deal is rated AA-minus by S&P.
Bond Buyer visible supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $669.4 million to $13.79 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $3.75 billion of competitive sales and $10.37 billion of negotiated deals.
Tax-exempt money market fund outflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced outflows of $1.19 billion, bringing total net assets to $129.15 billion in the week ended April 17, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
This followed an inflow of $95.3 million to $130.34 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 232 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds was unchanged at 0.39% from the previous week.
The total net assets of the 861 weekly reporting taxable money funds decreased $9.59 billion to $2.476 trillion in the week ended April 18, after an outflow of $3.56 billion to $2.485 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds increased to 0.42% from 0.41% in the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,091 weekly reporting money funds decreased $10.78 billion to $2.605 trillion in the week ended April 18, after outflows of $3.46 billion to $2.615 trillion in the prior week.
