Municipal bond traders are set to see some the week's biggest new deals hit the market on Thursday, with a slate topped off from an issuer in Maryland.
Secondary Market
U.S. Treasuries were mostly flat on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury held at 1.24% from 1.24% on Wednesday, while the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.52% from 2.47%, and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond remained at 3.10%.
Top-quality municipal bonds finished weaker on Wednesday. The 10-year benchmark muni general obligation yield rose two basis points to 2.34% from 2.32% on Tuesday, while the yield on the 30-year GO increased four basis points to 3.09% from 3.05%, according to the final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
The 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 92.9% on Wednesday compared to 94.0% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 99.5%, versus 99.8%, according to MMD.
Primary Market
The biggest offering of the week is Thursday's negotiated deal coming out of Baltimore, Md.
Citigroup is set to price the Mayor and City Council's $486 million of Series 2017A-C revenue bonds for water and wastewater projects on Thursday.
The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody's Investors Service and AA by S&P Global Ratings.
Since 2007, Baltimore has issued about $2.68 billion of debt, with the largest issuance occurring in 2013 when it sold roughly $800 million of debt. The city did not come to market at all in 2012.
In the competitive arena, the Sheldon Independent School District, Texas, is selling $100.71 million of Series 2017 unlimited general obligation tax school building and refunding bonds.
The deal, which is backed by the Permanent School Fund, is rated triple-A by Moody's.
Bond Buyer Visible Supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $1.50 billion to $7.49 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $1.42 billion of competitive sales and $6.07 billion of negotiated deals.
Tax-Exempt Money Market Fund Inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced inflows of $488.2 million, bringing total net assets to $131.30 billion in the week ended Jan. 23, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an outflow of $829.3 million to $130.81 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 233 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds were unchanged from 0.23% in the previous week.
The total net assets of the 863 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $17.03 billion to $2.523 trillion in the week ended Jan. 24, after an outflow of $26.25 billion to $2.506 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds was flat from 0.26%.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,099 weekly reporting money funds rose $17.52 billion to $2.654 trillion in the week ended Jan. 24 after outflows of $27.08 billion to $2.637 trillion in the prior week.
