Municipal bond buyers were treated to some new supply on Wednesday as deals from issuers in Hawaii, Colorado and Virginia came to market.
Primary market
Bank of America Merrill Lynch priced the city and county of Honolulu’s $250.2 million of Series 2019A and Series 2019B general obligation bonds.
The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-plus by S&P Global Ratings.
Since 2009, the city and county have issued about $7.3 billion of bonds, with the most issuance occurring in 2015 when $1.6 billion was sold. The city and county didn’t come to market in 2013 or 2014.
Wells Fargo Securities is set to price the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s $85 million of first series of 2019 turnpike revenue refunding bonds.
The deal is rated A1 by Moody’s, A-plus by Fitch and AA-minus by Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Proceeds will refinance a 2017 issue.
In the competitive arena, the Boulder Valley School District RE-2, Colo., sold around $301 million of GOs in two sales.
Citigroup won the $164.5 million of Series 2019B GO refunding bonds with a true interest cost of 2.9126%.
Wells Fargo won the $136.52 million of Series 2019A GOs with a TIC of 3.4677%.
The deals are rated rated Aa1 by Moody’s and AA-plus by S&P and Fitch.
Norfolk, Va., sold $138.21 million of GO capital improvement bonds.
BAML won the bonds with a TIC of 3.4925%.
The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s and AA-plus by S&P and Fitch.
Bond sale
Hawaii
Colorado
Virginia
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $6.92B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $688.3 million to $6.92 billion for Wednesday. The total is comprised of $3.06 billion of competitive sales and $3.86 billion of negotiated deals.
Secondary market
Municipal bonds were mixed Wednesday, according to a midday read of the MBIS benchmark scale. Benchmark muni yields fell as much as one basis point in the one- to four-year and nine- and 10-year maturities and rose as much as a basis point in the five- to eight-year and 11- to 30-year maturities.
High-grade munis were weaker, with muni yields falling as much as one basis point in the one- to four-year and nine- and 10-year maturities and rising as much as a basis point in the five- to eight-year and 11- to 30-year maturities.
Municipals were weaker on Municipal Market Data’s AAA benchmark scale, which showed the yield on the 10-year muni general obligation and the yield on 30-year muni maturity rising one to three basis points.
Treasury bonds were mixed as stock prices traded lower.
On Tuesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 81.0% while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 101.0%, 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.
Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 38,520 trades on Tuesday on volume of $8.91 billion.
California, New York and Texas were the municipalities with the most trades, with the he Golden State taking 14.865% of the market, the Empire State taking 12.615%, and the Lone Star State taking 9.169%.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
