The long holiday weekend comes at a perfect time for tired muni market participants after a furious few weeks of action spurred by tax reform, which led to a mammoth $57.89 billion in volume for the month.
Secondary market
The MBIS municipal non-callable 5% GO benchmark scale was mixed in early trading on Friday.
The 10-year muni benchmark yield remained at 2.383% from Thursday’s final read, according to
The MBIS benchmark index, which is comprised of investment-grade municipal securities, is updated hourly on the
Top-rated municipal bonds were stronger on Friday morning. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was as many as two basis points lower from 2.12% on Thursday, while the 30-year GO decreased by as much as one basis point from 2.70%, according to a read of MMD’s triple-A scale.
U.S. Treasuries were weaker on Friday morning. The yield on the two-year Treasury nudged up to 1.89% from 1.87%, the 10-year Treasury yield nudged up to 2.49% from 2.48% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury rose to 2.84% from 2.83%.
On Thursday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 85.6% compared with 85.4% on Wednesday, while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 95.3% versus 94.9%, according to MMD.
Lipper: Muni bond funds saw inflows
Investors in municipal bond funds saw a cash infusion for second week in a row, according to Lipper data released on Thursday.
The weekly reporters saw $250.663 million of inflows in the week of Dec. 13, after inflows of $216.923 million in the previous week.
Exchange traded funds reported inflows of $212.354 million, after inflows of $146.556 million in the previous week. Ex-ETFs, muni funds saw $38.309 million of outflows, after inflows of $70.366 million in the previous week.
The four-week moving average turned to negative $59.796 million, after being in the green at $42.348 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 $399.232 million in the latest week after inflows of $376.086 million in the previous week. Intermediate-term funds had inflows of $128.869 million after outflows of $54.970 million in the prior week.
National funds had inflows of $323.331 million after inflows of $424.665 million in the previous week.
High-yield muni funds reported inflows of $153.089 million in the latest week, after inflows of $249.618 million the previous week.
MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 48,081 trades on Thursday on volume of $21.633 billion.
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $2.30 billion to $2.88 billion on Friday. The total is comprised of $1.01 billion of competitive sales and $1.87 billion of negotiated deals.
Primary market
This week saw a flurry of activity in the early part, before a decline on Thursday.
On Monday, Goldman Sachs priced the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $637.72 million of revenue refunding bonds. Morgan Stanley priced the San Francisco Public Utility Commission’s $406.775 million of water revenue bonds. Bank of America Merrill Lynch priced the Indiana Finance Authority’s $340.09 million of health system revenue bonds for the Franciscan Alliance Inc., Obligated Group. JPMorgan priced the State of Connecticut Health and Higher Educational Facilities Authority’s $383.38 million of revenue bonds for Yale University.
Wells Fargo priced Virginia Commonwealth University Health System’s $197.93 million of general revenue refunding bonds. Citi priced the California Health Finance Authority’s $141.83 million of revenue bonds for Sharp HealthCare. Morgan Stanley priced the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency’s $110.715 million of revenue bonds for the University of Massachusetts Healthcare Obligated Group.
On Tuesday, Morgan Stanley priced the California Health Facilities Financing Authority’s $454.99 million of refunding revenue bonds for Stanford Healthcare. Goldman Sachs priced the Riverside County, Calif., Transportation Commission’s $393.44 million of sales tax revenue refunding limited tax bonds. Morgan Stanley priced the School Board of Broward County, Fla.’s $207.53 million of certificates of participation.
Goldman priced the New Jersey Health Care Facilities Financing Authority’s $173.59 million of state contract refunding bonds for the Hospital Asset Transformation Program. Wells Fargo priced the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank’s $171.5 million of refunding revenue bonds for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Project.
On Wednesday, Barclays Capital ran the books on Houston’s $1.005 billion of pension general obligation taxable bonds. Jefferies priced the Railsplitter Tobacco Settlement Authority, Ill.’s $678.61 million of settlement revenue bonds. Citi priced Palomar Health, Calif.’s $151.96 million of refunding revenue bonds.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
