Muni market set for top-rated Maryland GOs

Municipal bond traders are set to see the state of Maryland come to market with two top-quality competitive sales on Wednesday.

Secondary market
Treasuries were mixed on Wednesday. The yield on the two-year Treasury was flat from 1.35% on Tuesday, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.28% from 2.26% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond increased to 2.86% from 2.84%.

Top-rated municipal bonds finished weaker on Tuesday. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation rose three basis points to 1.91% from 1.88% on Monday, while the 30-year GO yield increased four basis points to 2.78% from 2.74%, according to the final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.

The 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 84.5% on Tuesday, compared with 84.8% on Monday, while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 98.0% versus 97.8%, according to MMD.

MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 40,561 trades on Tuesday on volume of $8.83 billion.

Primary market
On Wednesday, the state of Maryland is competitively selling about $1.3 billion of general obligation bonds in two separate offerings.

The deals consist of $792.83 million of state and local facilities loan of 2017 Series B tax-exempt refunding GOs and $550 million of state and local facilities loan of 2017 Series A tax-exempt GOs.

Both sales are rated triple-A by Moody’s Investors Service, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings.

Since 2007 the Old Line State has sold $16.25 billion of securities, with the most issuance before this year occurring in 2014 when it sold $1.89 billion. It saw a low year of issuance in ten years ago when it sold $700 million. Wednesday’s sales put Maryland over the $2 billion mark for the year.

BB-081717-MUN

In the negotiated sector on Wednesday, Citigroup is set to price the state of Louisiana’s $368 million of fuels tax revenue refunding bonds consisting of Series 2017B and Series 2017C second liens.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is expected to price the city and county of Honolulu, Hawaii’s $411 million of general obligation bonds.

The issue is made up of tax-exempts, tax-exempt refundings, taxable refundings and taxable green bonds.

The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s and AA-plus by Fitch.

Piper Jaffray is expected to price the state of Mississippi’s $101 million of taxable GO on Wednesday.

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

Bond Buyer reports 30-day visible supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $783.2 million to $8.99 billion on Wednesday. The total is comprised of $4.66 billion of competitive sales and $4.33 billion of negotiated deals.

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