The municipal bond market is prepping for around $5 billion of new issuance in the upcoming holiday-shortened week.
Ipreo forecasts weekly bond volume will be $5.1 billion, down from a revised total of $6.59 billion in the prior week, according to updated data from Thomson Reuters. The calendar is composed of $3.6 billion of negotiated deals and $1.5 billion of competitive sales.
The slate shows a dozen scheduled deals of $100 million or larger, with three of those being competitive.
JPMorgan is set to price the biggest deal of the week — the Connecticut Health and Educational Facilities Authority’s $535.865 of revenue bonds for Yale University on Thursday. The deal is rated triple-A by Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings.
Citi is slated to price the New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s $426 million of revenue bonds on Thursday. The deal is rated A2 by Moody’s, A-plus by S&P and A by Fitch Ratings.
RBC Capital Markets is scheduled to price the Iowa Finance Authority’s $258.97 million of state revolving fund revenue green bonds and taxable green bonds on Wednesday. The deal carries top-tier ratings from Moody’s, S&P and Fitch.
CreditSights: Prepare for changes in 2019
CreditSights released part one of its yearly outlook for munis, in which Patrick Luby, senior municipal strategist writes, the firm is cautiously optimistic total returns will be positive this year.
“[T]he premium coupon structure of the muni market ... should generate enough income return to more than offset potential negative price returns,” Luby wrote in the report. “However, a large increase in tax-exempt supply could put downward pressure on prices because of the absence of bank demand.”
He continued, his firm will be looking for a continuation of steady demand from domestic retail investors, but expects the continued absence of bank demand, due to banks' lower maximum tax rate and the current relative valuation of muni to corporate bond yields.
“We anticipate that municipal bond ETFs will continue to accumulate assets at a rate faster than their assets under management might suggest and that actively-managed muni ETFs will grow in popularity,” according to the report. “Although total foreign ownership of municipals is a small part of the overall market, non-U.S. investor demand has grown over the past several years and recent growth in the total amount of negative-yielding debt makes even tax-exempt muni yields more attractive.”
Luby also noted liquidity (and therefore valuations) will be affected by changes in dealer inventories, increased use of muni ETFs and the growing "professionalization" of the municipal bond market.
“Increasing use of electronic trading platforms has allowed auto-bidders and algorithmic traders to get more involved in the day-to-day flows of the secondary market, adding scalability and liquidity,” he said. “The biggest changes in the market will happen because of the growing popularity of Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs). This growing ‘professionalization’ of the muni market will result in more trading activity, not less, and will further concentrate demand in the new issue market, allowing values to emerge in the secondary market for "out of favor" bonds and creating opportunities for active managers.”
Lipper: Muni bond funds see inflows again
Investors in municipal bond funds continued their confidence and put cash into them in the latest week, according to Lipper data released on Thursday.
The weekly reporters saw $945.911 million of inflows in the week ended Jan. 16 after inflows of $1.554 billion in the previous week.
Exchange traded funds reported outflows of $306.220 million, after inflows of $205.218 million in the previous week. Ex-ETFs, muni funds saw inflows of $1.252 billion after inflows of $1.348 billion in the previous week.
The four-week moving average remained positive and grew to $707.936 million, after being in the green at $535.216 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 had inflows of $401.730 million in the latest week after inflows of $949.276 million in the previous week. Intermediate-term funds had inflows of $497.610 million after inflows of $494.374 million in the prior week.
National funds had inflows of $774.506 million after inflows of $1.388 billion in the previous week. High-yield muni funds reported inflows of $411.038 million in the latest week, after inflows of $508.889 million the previous week.
Secondary market
Municipal bonds were mostly weaker on Friday, according to a midday read of the MBIS benchmark scale. Benchmark muni yields rose as many as one basis point in the one- to five-year and 12- to 30-year maturities. The remaining six maturities saw yields decrease by less than a basis point.
High-grade munis were mostly stronger, with yields calculated on MBIS' AAA scale decreasing as many as one basis point in the one- to 11-year and 22- to 30-year maturities. The 12-year to 17-year maturities saw yields rise by less than one basis point. The four leftover maturities were unchanged.
Municipals were mixed on Municipal Market Data’s AAA benchmark scale, which showed the yield on the 10-year muni general obligation unchanged and the 30-year muni maturity up by as many as one basis point.
On Thursday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 80.2% while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 99.3%, according to MMD. The muni-to-Treasury ratio compares the yield of tax-exempt municipal bonds with the yield of taxable U.S. Treasury with comparable maturities. If the muni/Treasury ratio is above 100%, munis are yielding more than Treasury; if it is below 100%, munis are yielding less.
Previous session's activity
California, New York and Texas were the municipalities with the most trades, with the Golden State taking 17.582% of the market, the Empire State taking 13.172% and the Lone Star State taking 8.923%.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
