The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority sold over $1 billion of securities in four competitive sales on Thursday.
Primary market
Bank of America Merrill Lynch won the MTA’s $200 million of Series 2019A Subseries 2019A-1 transportation revenue climate bond certified green bonds with a true interest cost of 2.3199%.
BAML also won the $100 million of Series 2019A Subseries 2019A-3 transportation revenue climate bond certified green bonds with a TIC of 3.9358%.
JPMorgan Securities won the $162.805 million of Series 2019A Subseries 2019A-2 transportation revenue climate bond certified green bonds with a TIC of 4.297%.
The MTA’s $750 million of transportation revenue bond anticipation notes were won by several groups.
Moody's rates the bonds A1 and assigns a MIG1 rating to the BANs; S&P rates the bonds A and the BANs SP1; Fitch rates the bonds AA-minus and the BANs F1-plus and Kroll Bond Rating Agency assigns an AA-plus rating to the bonds and a K1-plus rating to the BANs.
Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. insured the $100 million of Subseries 2019A-3, which are rated AA by S&P.
In the negotiated sector, Siebert Cisneros Shank priced the Bexar County Hospital District, Texas’ $204.475 million of Series 2019 limited tax refunding bonds.
The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s and AA-plus bu Fitch.
Thursday’s sales
New York
Texas
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $6.97B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar increased $185.1 million to $6.97 billion for Thursday. The total is comprised of $2.44 billion of competitive sales and $4.53 billion of negotiated deals.
Secondary market
Municipal bonds were stronger Thursday, according to a midday read of the MBIS benchmark scale. Benchmark muni yields fell as much as four basis points in the one- to 30-year maturities.
High-grade munis were also stronger, with muni yields falling as much as three basis points across the curve.
Municipals were stronger on Municipal Market Data’s AAA benchmark scale, which showed the yield on the 10-year muni general obligation falling three to five basis points while the yield on 30-year muni maturity fell four to six basis points.
Treasury bonds were weaker as stock prices traded mixed.
On Wednesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 82.2% 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 40,076 trades on Wednesday on volume of $13.75 billion.
California, Texas and New York were the municipalities with the most trades, with the Golden State taking 17.816% of the market, the Lone Star State taking 12.158% and the Empire State taking 10.108%.
Muni money market funds see third straight outflow
Tax-free municipal money market fund assets decreased $2.10 billion, lowering their total net assets to $142.49 billion in the week ended Jan. 28, according to the Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.
The average seven-day simple yield for the 190 tax-free and municipal money-market funds nudged up to 0.91% from 0.90% last week.
Taxable money-fund assets lost $6.30 billion in the week ended Jan. 29, bringing total net assets to $2.864 trillion.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 804 taxable reporting funds was unchanged from 2.04% last week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 994 reporting money funds decreased $8.40 billion to $3.007 trillion in the week ended Jan. 29.
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
