Top quality municipal bonds ended weaker on Thursday, according to traders, as the last big supply of the week hit the market.
Primary Market
Wells Fargo Securities priced the city of St. Louis’ $258.44 million of airport refunding and revenue bonds for the St. Louis Lambert International Airport.
The $125.41 million of revenue refunding, Series 2017A non-alternative minimum tax bonds were priced to yield from 1.16% with a 4% coupon in 2020 to 2.69% with a 5% coupon in 2032. This portion of the deal is insured by Assured Guaranty Municipal and is rated A2 by Moody’s and AA by S&P.
The $74.72 million of Series 2017B AMT bonds were priced to yield from 1.22% with a 5% coupon in 2018 to 2.49% with a 5% coupon in 2027. This portion of the deal is insured by AGM and rated A2 by Moody’s and AA by S&P, with the exception of the 2018 maturity, which is uninsured and is rated A3 by Moody’s and A-minus by S&P.
The $31.7 million of revenue Series 2017C non-AMT bonds was priced to yield 3.05% with a 5% coupon in 2042 as well as 3.11% with a 5% coupon in 2047. This portion of the deal is insured by AGM and is rated A2 by Moody’s and AA by S&P.
The $26.605 million of Series 2017D AMT bonds were priced to yield from 2.64% with a 5% coupon in 2028 to 3.20% with a 5% coupon in 2037. This portion of the deal is insured by AGM and is rated A2 by Moody’s and AA by S&P.
“We were pleased to be able to provide economic value to an airport credit as strong as St. Louis Lambert International,” said Jason Kissane, managing director and head of western region public finance at Assured. “The market is using Assured Guaranty as the preferred insurer on large transactions like this based on our financial strength and trading value.”
In the short-term sector, JP Morgan Securities priced Riverside County, Calif.’s $340 million of 2017 tax and revenue anticipation notes.
The deal was priced as 2s to yield 0.90% in 2018, with no optional call and interest paid at maturity.
The deal is rated SP1-plus by S&P and F1-plus by Fitch.
In the competitive arena, the Clark County School District, Nev., sold $473.88 million of bonds in two separate offerings.
JPMorgan won the $412.31 million of Series 2017A limited tax general obligation building and refunding bonds with a true interest cost of 2.55%. The bonds were priced to yield from 0.93% with a 5% coupon in 2018 to 3.32% with a 4% coupon in 2037.
Citi won the $61.57 million of Series 2017B limited tax GO refunding bonds additionally secured by pledged revenues with a TIC of 1.12%.
The deals are rated A1 by Moody’s and AA-minus by S&P.
Since 2007, the Clark County School District has issued over $4 billion of debt with the most issuance occurring in 2007 when it sold $1.12 billion of bonds. The school district sold the least amount of securities in 2011 when it issued 98.6 million.
Secondary market
The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation rose two basis points to 1.85% from 1.83% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield increased three basis points to 2.69% from 2.66%, according to the final read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.
U.S. Treasuries were weaker on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose to 1.32% from 1.31% on Wednesday as the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.19% from 2.18% while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond increased to 2.85% from 2.84%.
The 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 84.4% on Thursday, compared with 84.0% on Wednesday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 94.2% versus 93.8%, according to MMD.
MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 41,928 trades on Wednesday on volume of $13.86 billion.
Tax-exempt money market fund inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced inflows of $1.1 billion, bringing total net assets to $130.44 billion in the week ended June 5, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an outflow of $347.4 million to $129.33 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 232 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds dropped to 0.31% from 0.32% in the previous week.
The total net assets of the 851 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $3.51 billion to $2.501 trillion in the week ended June 6, after an inflow of $8.66 billion to $2.498 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds increased to 0.47% from 0.46% in the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,083 weekly reporting money funds increased $4.61 billion to $2.632 trillion in the week ended June 6, after inflows of $8.31 billion to $2.627 trillion in the prior week.
