Muniland gets much needed break

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 Municipal Bond Information Services. The MBIS 30-year benchmark muni yield dropped to 2.843% from 2.859%.

The MBIS benchmark index, which is comprised of investment-grade municipal securities, is updated hourly on the Bond Buyer Data Workstation.

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.

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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. Click here for a brief tour of the Workstation, or contact Vanessa Kim at 212-803-8474 for more information.

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Primary bond market Tax reform Secondary bond market Metropolitan Transportation Authority Indiana Finance Authority Connecticut Health & Educational Facilities Authority City of Houston, TX
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