Municipal bond buyers saw more volume hit the screens on Wednesday as the big New Jersey deal came to market.
Primary market
Citigroup priced and repriced the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority’s $1.579 billion of Series 2018A transportation system bonds on Wednesday after it circulated a premarketing scale late Tuesday.
Proceeds will refund outstanding bonds.
The deal is rated Baa1 by Moody’s Investors Service, BBB-plus by S&P Global Ratings and A-minus by Fitch Ratings, except for the 2037 maturity which is insured by Build America Mutual and rated AA by S&P.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch priced Columbus, Ohio’s $399.795 million of Series 2018A&B tax-exempt general obligation bonds and Series 2018C&D taxable GOs.
The deal is rated triple-A by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch.
Barclays Capital priced the Kansas Department of Transportation’s $173.13 million of Series 2018A highway revenue bonds.
The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s and AAA by S&P.
In the short-term competitive sector, the N.Y. Metropolitan Transportation Authority came to market with two sales of transportation revenue bond anticipation notes totaling $900 million.
The deals consist of $450 million of Series 2018C, Subseries 2018C-1 BANs and $450 million of Series 2018C, Subseries 2018C-2 BANs.
Proceeds of the sale will be used to finance existing transit and commuter projects. Public Resources Advisory Group is the financial advisor.
Wednesday’s bond sales
New Jersey
Kansas
Ohio
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $9.20B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $2.33 billion to $9.20 billion for Wednesday. The total is comprised of $2.99 billion of competitive sales and $6.21 billion of negotiated deals.
Secondary market
Municipal bonds were mixed on Wednesday, according to a midday read of the MBIS benchmark scale, with yields falling less than one basis point in the one- to three-year and 10- to 12-year maturities, rising less than a basis point in the five- to eight-year and 14- to 30-year maturities and remaining unchanged in the four-year, nine-year and 13-year maturities.
High-grade munis were little changed, according to yields calculated on MBIS' AAA scale, which saw yields fall less than one basis point in the nine- to 30-year maturities, rise less than a basis point in the two- to eight-year maturities and remain unchanged in the one-year maturity.
Municipals were steady on Municipal Market Data’s AAA benchmark scale, which showed the yield on both the 10-year muni general obligation and the yield on 30-year muni maturity remaining unchanged.
Treasury bonds were weaker as stock prices traded higher.
On Tuesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 84.6% while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 100.0%, 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 45,746 trades on Tuesday on volume of $12.62 billion.
California, Texas and New York were the municipalities with the most trades, with the Golden State taking 17.968% of the market, the Lone Star State taking 11.862% and the Empire State taking 11.513%.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
