Municipal bond buyers gobbled up taxable supply from Pennsylvania and Illinois Thursday as the recent rise in yields slowed. Traders' attention shifted to next week’s calendar which is topped by the Sales Tax Securitization Corp.’s $898 million deal out of Chicago.
Primary market
RBC Capital Markets received the written award on the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Financing Authority’s $412.0 million of Series 2018A taxable revenue bonds for the Plancon program.
The issue was priced at par to yield from 3.451% in 2027 to 3.781% in 2031 and 3.864% in 2038.
The deal is rated A1 by Moody’s Investors Service, A by S&P Global Ratings and A-plus by Fitch Ratings.
JPMorgan Securities received the official award on the Illinois Finance Authority’s $223.55 million of Series 2018 taxable revenue refunding bonds for the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
The issue was priced at par to yield from 3.498% in 2028 to 3.748% in 2034 and 3.944% in a 2047 term maturity with an average life of 26.278 years.
The deal is rated AA-minus by S&P and AA by Fitch.
JPMorgan also priced the Tomball Independent School District, Texas’ $133.41 million of Series 2018 unlimited tax school building bonds.
The issue was priced as 5s to yield from 1.66% in 2020 to 2.86% in 2039. A 2041 term bond was priced as 5s to yield 2.87% while a 2044 term was priced as 4s to yield 3.30%.
The deal is backed by the Permanent School Fund guarantee program and is rated triple-A by Moody’s and S&P.
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $5.30B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $534.6 million to $5.30 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $2.25 billion of competitive sales and $3.05 billion of negotiated deals.
Tax-exempt money market funds saw inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced inflows of $4.34 billion, bringing total net assets to $135.40 billion in the week ended Jan. 8, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
This followed an inflow of $130.8 million to $131.06 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 199 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds dropped to 0.96% from 1.03% the previous week.
The total net assets of the 832 weekly reporting taxable money funds decreased $7.07 billion to $2.668 trillion in the week ended Jan. 9, after an inflow of $4.66 billion to $2.675 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds increased to 0.93% from 0.92% from the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,031 weekly reporting money funds decreased $2.73 billion to $2.803 trillion in the week ended Jan. 9, after inflows of $4.79 billion to $2.806 trillion in the prior week.
Next week, Goldman Sachs is set to price the Sales Tax Securitization Corp.’s $898.07 million of Series 2018A sales tax securitization bonds on Wednesday.
The Chicago deal is rated AA by S&P, and AAA by Fitch and Kroll Rating Agency.
Secondary market
The MBIS municipal non-callable 5% GO benchmark scale was weaker in late trading.
The 10-year muni benchmark yield rose to 2.355% on Thursday from the final read of 2.345% on Wednesday, according to
The MBIS benchmark index is updated hourly on the
Top-rated municipal bonds finished mixed on Thursday. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was steady from 2.12% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield fell one basis point to 2.71% from 2.72%, according to the final read of MMD’s triple-A scale.
U.S. Treasuries were little changed in late activity. The yield on the two-year Treasury dipped to 1.96% from 1.97% on Wednesday, the 10-year Treasury yield dropped to 2.53% from 2.56% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury decreased to 2.87% from 2.89%.
On Wednesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 83.8% compared with 83.2% on Wednesday, while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 94.6% versus 94.0%, according to MMD.
MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 46,686 trades on Wednesday on volume of $13.14 billion.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
