Munis wobble as Calif. State bonds, Colo. notes sell

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Municipals were mixed at mid-session as the last of the week’s big deals came to market, led by a bond offering out of California and a note sale from Colorado.

Thursday’s market saw demand remain strong even as volume rebounded from last week’s holiday lull. “The supply-demand balance is pretty equal and is bending toward the demand side,” said a New York trader.

Pointing to yesterday’s Dormitory Authority of New York sales tax revenue offering, he said the bonds were aggressively bid due to the availability of current coupons in a supply-starved market. “It was aggressively bid more because in the dealer community there is net negative supply and they need paper moving forward,” he said. “Stocking bonds is not all that much of a problem.”

He said bank portfolios bought the longer end of that deal — especially the 4% coupon.

“There definitely looks like more money being put to work now and more secondary trading going on,” he said.

Overall, the yield curve is steep to Treasuries, with the short end priced slightly richer and the long end cheaper due to the overhang of the fear of rising interest rates, he said.

“The short end is richer, but buyers in that sector of the market are buying because the yields make sense in the current tax rate scenario — the short end is not rich to those that need the tax exemption,” he said.

Primary market
In the negotiated sector, Morgan Stanley priced the Trustees of the California State University’s $493.49 million of Series 2018A systemwide revenue bonds for institutions after holding a one-day retail order period.

The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-minus by S&P Global Ratings.

Barclays Capital priced the Los Angeles County Facilities Inc.’s $299.695 million of lease revenue bonds for the Vermont Corridor County administration building. The issue consists of Series 2018A tax-exempts and Series 2018B taxables.

The deal is rated AA by S&P and AA-minus by Fitch Ratings.

Piper Jaffray priced the Salem-Keizer School District No. 24J of Marion and Polk Counties, Ore.’s $383.23 million of Series 2018 general obligation bonds.The deal is backed by the Oregon School Bond Guaranty Act and rated Aa1 by Moody’s and AA by S&P.

Piper Jaffray also priced the Aldine Independent School District of Harris County, Texas’ $148 million of Series 2018 unlimited tax school building bonds.

The issue, backed by the Permanent School Fund guarantee program, is rated triple-A by Moody’s and S&P.

In the competitive sector, the Florida State Board of Education sold $117.705 million of Series 2018B full faith and credit public education capital outlay bonds. Wells Fargo Securities won the bonds with a true interest cost of 3.48%.The deal is rated triple-A by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. In the short-term sector, Colorado sold $600 million of general fund tax and revenue anticipation notes. Two groups won the TRANs including Wells Fargo Securities and JPMorgan Securities. The deal is rated MIG1 by Moody’s and SP1-plus by S&P.

Thursday’s sales
California:
Click here for the State University pricing

Click here for the State University retail pricing

Click here for the Los Angeles County pricing

Oregon:
Click here for the Salem-Keizer pricing

Texas:
Click here for the Aldine ISD pricing

Florida:
Click here for the BOE sale

Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $10.89B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $1.04 billion to $10.89 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $3.48 billion of competitive sales and $7.42 billion of negotiated deals.

Secondary market
Municipal bonds were mixed on Thursday, according to a midday read of the MBIS benchmark scale. Benchmark muni yields fell as much as one basis point in the four- to seven-year and 20- to 27-year maturities, rose as much as one basis point in the one- to three-year and eight- to 16-year maturities and were unchanged in the 17- to 19-year and 28- to 30-year maturities.

High-grade munis were also mixed, with yields calculated on MBIS’ AAA scale falling as much as one basis point in the four- to seven year and 28- to 30-year maturities, rising as much as one basis point in the one- to three-year and nine- to 25-year maturities and remaining unchanged in the eight-year and 26- and 27-year maturities.

Municipals were unchanged on Municipal Market Data’s AAA benchmark scale, which showed both the 10-year muni general obligation yield and the 30-year muni maturity yield steady.

Treasury bonds were stronger as stocks traded lower.

On Wednesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 84.7% while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 99.0%, according to MMD. The muni-to-Treasury ratio compares the yield of tax-exempt municipal bonds with the yield of taxable U.S. Treasury with comparable maturities. If the muni/Treasury ratio is above 100%, munis are yielding more than Treasury; if it is below 100%, munis are yielding less.

ICI: Long-term muni funds see $356M inflow
Long-term municipal bond funds saw an inflow of $356 million in the week ended July 3, the Investment Company Institute reported.

This followed an inflow of $525 million into the tax-exempt mutual funds in the week ended June 27 and inflows of $742 million, $326 million, $648 million, $661 million, $185 million and $450 million in the six prior weeks.

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Taxable bond funds saw an estimated inflow of $4.23 billion in the latest reporting week, after seeing an inflow of $2.45 billion in the previous week.

ICI said the total estimated outflows to long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds were $9.61 billion for the week ended July 3 after outflows of $16.79 billion in the prior week.

Tax-exempt money market funds saw inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds saw inflows of $1.74 billion, raising total net assets to $138.56 billion in the week ended July 9, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an inflow of $1.41 billion to $136.82 billion in the prior week.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the 201 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds fell to 0.81% from 1.02% the previous week.

The total net assets of the 831 weekly reporting taxable money funds rose $22.64 billion to $2.673 trillion in the week ended July 10, after an outflow of $1.68 billion to $2.651 trillion the week before.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds decreased to 1.54% from 1.55% from the prior week.

Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,032 weekly reporting money funds rose $24.39 billion to $2.812 trillion in the week ended July 10, after outflows of $274 million to $2.787 trillion in the prior week.

Treasury announces auction details
The Treasury Department announced these auctions:

  • $13 billion of 10-year TIPs selling on July 19;
  • $26 billion of 364-day bills selling on July 17
  • $45 billion of 182-day bills selling on July 16; and
  • $51 billion of 91-day bills selling on July 16.

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

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