Municipal bond market participants are returning to work after the long holiday weekend. Traders will be eyeing declining muni yields as they await the start of the week’s new issuance.
Municipal bond volume is estimated at $6.82 billion this week, with the calendar consisting of $5.55 billion of negotiated deals and $1.28 billion of competitive sales.
Secondary market
U.S. Treasuries were narrowly mixed on Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury dropped to 1.18% from 1.21% on Thursday, while the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.22% from 2.24%, and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was unchanged from 2.89%.
Top shelf municipal bonds ended stronger on Thursday. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation fell four basis points to 2.08% from 2.12% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield dropped three basis points to 2.91% from 2.94%, according to the final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
On Thursday, the 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 93.3% compared to 92.5% on Wednesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 101.0%, versus 100.4%, according to MMD.
MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 26,734 trades on Thursday on volume of $8.17 billion.
Prior week's actively traded issues
Revenue bonds comprised 57.98% of new issuance in the week ended April 14, down from 58.13% in the previous week, according to
General obligation bonds comprised 36.53% of total issuance, up from 36.26%, while taxable bonds made up 5.49%, down from 5.61%.
Previous week's top underwriters
The top negotiated and competitive underwriters of last week included RBC Capital Markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Securities, Wells Fargo Securities and Citigroup, according to Thomson Reuters data.
In the week of April 9 to April 15, RBC underwrote $1.18 billion, BAML $765.4 million, JPMorgan $762.7million, Wells Fargo $658.6 million and Citi $266.6 million.
Primary market
There are no major deals slated for Monday as action is set to get underway on Tuesday.
In the competitive arena on Tuesday, the Miami-Dade County School District, Fla., is selling $250 million of Series 2017 unlimited tax general obligation bonds.
The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service.
Henrico County, Va., is competitively selling $100.65 million of Series 2017A unlimited tax GOs on Tuesday.
The deal is rated triple-A by Moody’s, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings.
In the negotiated sector on Tuesday, Siebert Cisneros Shank is expected to price the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York’s $300 million of Series 2017A dormitory facilities revenue bonds for retail investors ahead of the institutional pricing on Wednesday. The DASNY deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s an A-plus by Fitch.
Wells Fargo Securities is set to price the Katy Independent School District, Texas’ $257.46 million of Series 2017 unlimited tax school building bonds. The deal, which is backed by the Permanent School Fund guarantee program, is rated Aa1 by Moody’s and AA-minus by S&P/
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is set to price the Geisinger Authority, Pa.’s $240 million of Series 2017A-2 health system revenue bonds for the Geisinger Health System for retail investors ahead of the institutional pricing on Wednesday. The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s and AA by S&P.
Bond Buyer visible supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar increased $474.5 million to $14.40 billion on Monday. The total is comprised of $4.10 billion of competitive sales and $10.30 billion of negotiated deals.
Lipper: Muni bond funds report inflows
Investors in municipal bond funds once again reversed course and put cash back into the funds in the latest week, according to Lipper data released late on Thursday.
The weekly reporters saw $1.63 billion of inflows in the week ended April 12, after outflows of $287.201 million in the previous week.
The four-week moving average was still in the green at positive $444.756 million, after being positive at $8.313 million in the previous week. A moving average is an analytical tool used to smooth out price changes by filtering out fluctuations.
Long-term muni bond funds also had inflows, gaining $1.09 billion in the latest week after falling $166.361 million in the previous week. Intermediate-term funds had inflows of $505.697 million after outflows of $79.763 million in the prior week.
National funds had inflows of $1.699 billion after outflows of $135.789 million in the previous week. High-yield muni funds reported inflows of $604.105 million in the latest reporting week, after inflows of $68.334 million the previous week.
Exchange traded funds saw inflows of $113.902 million, after inflows of $81.089 million in the previous week.
