Municipals were trading in sympathy with Treasuries on Thursday morning as the market remained quiet as it prepared for the week’s end.
“There is not much going on,” said a New York trader. “There are a couple of bid lists around, but nothing sizable.”
He described some softness in the morning, saying Treasuries and general market municipals were trading up to two basis points higher in yield.
“If the Treasury rallies back, the MMD curve could be unchanged on the day,” he said. “Munis would firm up if Treasuries firm up.”
Municipals have outperformed over the last few days and Treasuries have regained some footing, however, there may be a little lull in activity later today and tomorrow, the trader said.
“There is some caution and potential volatility heading into the payroll number tomorrow,” he said.
Primary market
The muni market saw the last new issuance offerings of the week flow in on Thursday.
RBC received the written award of Santa Monica Community College District’s $249.36 million of general obligation election of 2016 bonds. The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA-plus by S&P Global Ratings.
Citi priced the New York City Housing Development Corporation’s $100 million of multi-family housing revenue, index floating rate taxable bonds. The deal is rated Aa2 by Moody’s and AA-plus by S&P.
Thursday’s bond offerings
California:
New York:
Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $7.07B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $3.98 million to $7.07 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $2.97 billion of competitive sales and $4.09 billion of negotiated deals.
ICI: Long-term muni funds see $129M inflow
Long-term municipal bond funds saw an inflow of $129 million in the week ended March 28, the Investment Company Institute reported on Wednesday.
This followed inflows of $769 million into the tax-exempt mutual funds in the week ended March 21 and inflows of $703 million, $214 million and $110 million in the three prior weeks.
Taxable bond funds saw estimated inflows of $336 million in the latest reporting week, after seeing inflows of $4.55 billion in the previous week.
ICI said the total estimated outflows to long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds were $13.10 billion for the week ended March 28 after outflows of $7.36 billion in the prior week.
Tax-exempt money market funds saw outflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced outflows of $730.2 million, lowering total net assets to $133.15 billion in the week ended April 3, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com. This followed an outflow of $1.27 billion on to $133.88 billion in the previous week.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the 198 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds increased to 1.03% from 0.85% the previous week.
The total net assets of the 829 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $11.59 billion to $2.675 trillion in the week ended April 2, after an inflow of $9.03 billion to $2.663 trillion the week before.
The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds increased to 1.29% from 1.23% from the prior week.
Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,027 weekly reporting money funds increased $10.86 billion to $2.808 trillion in the week ended April 2, after inflows of $7.76 billion to $2.797 trillion in the prior week.
Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 43,573 trades on Wednesday on volume of $11.78 billion.
California, New York and Texas were the states with the most trades, with the Golden State taking 14.85% of the market, the Empire State taking 12.097% and the Lone Star State taking 11.763%.
The Treasury Department announced these auctions
- $21 billion 29-year 10-month bonds selling on April 12
- $21 billion 9-year 10-month bonds selling on April 11
- $30 billion three-year notes selling on April 10
- $42 billion 182-day bills selling on April 9
- $48 billion 91-day bills selling on April 9
Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation.
