The tone in the municipal bond market was tentative for most of the day on Thursday, ahead of Friday's release of the March unemployment report.
“There is some caution and potential volatility,” ahead of the jobs report, a New York trader said. He added that activity was subdued. “There are a couple of bid lists around, but nothing sizable."
Municipal bonds finished mixed on the day as the last of the week’s new deals hit the market with supply slowing to a trickle.
Muni 10-year yields were mostly higher, gaining as much as one basis point, while muni 30-year yields dipped less than a basis point, according to a late read of the MBIS benchmark and AAA scales. Treasury yields rose as much as five basis points on the day as stock prices gained.
Primary market
Citigroup priced the New York City Housing Development Corp.’s $100 million of multi-family housing revenue, index floating rate taxable bonds.
Citi also priced the Corona-Norco Unified School District, Calif.’s $119.44 million of general obligation bonds.
Morgan Stanley priced Atlantic City, N.J.’s $49.17 million of Series 2018A taxable deferred contribution refunding bonds.
Barclays Capital priced the University of Delaware’s $200 million of Series 2018 taxable bonds.
RBC Capital markets received the written award of Santa Monica Community College District, Calif.’s $249 million of tax-exempt and taxable GOs.
Jefferies received the official award on the New Jersey Tobacco Settlement Finance Corp.’s $3.15 billion of tobacco settlement bonds.
Thursday’s bond offerings
California:
New York:
New Jersey:
Delaware:
New Jersey:
ICI: Long-term muni funds see $129M inflow
Long-term municipal bond funds received an inflow of $129 million in the week ended March 28, the Investment Company Institute reported on Wednesday.
This followed inflows of $769 million into the tax-exempt mutual funds in the week ended March 21 and inflows of $703 million, $214 million and $110 million in the three prior weeks.
Taxable bond funds saw estimated inflows of $336 million in the latest reporting week, after inflows of $4.55 billion in the previous week.
ICI said estimated outflows to long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds totaled $13.10 billion for the week ended March 28 after outflows of $7.36 billion in the previous week.
Tax-exempt money market funds saw outflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced outflows of $730.2 million, lowering total net assets to $133.15 billion in the week ended April 3, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an outflow of $1.27 billion to $133.88 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 198 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds increased to 1.03% from 0.85% the previous week.
The total net assets of the 829 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $11.59 billion to $2.675 trillion in the week ended April 2, after an inflow of $9.03 billion to $2.663 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds increased to 1.29% from 1.23% from the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,027 weekly reporting money funds increased $10.86 billion to $2.808 trillion in the week ended April 2, after inflows of $7.76 billion to $2.797 trillion in the prior week.
Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 43,573 trades on Wednesday on volume of $11.78 billion.
California, New York and Texas were the states with the most trades, with the Golden State taking 14.85% of the market, the Empire State taking 12.097% and the Lone Star State taking 11.763%.
Treasury announces auctions for next week
The Treasury department on Thursday announced the following securities auctions for next week:
- $21 billion 29-year 10-month bonds selling on April 12;
- $21 billion 9-year 10-month bonds selling on April 11;
- $30 billion three-year notes selling on April 10;
- $42 billion 182-day bills selling on April 9; and
- $48 billion 91-day bills selling on April 9.
Gary Siegel contributed to this report.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
