State of California

Municipal bond issuance was $67.88 billion after the first two months of 2020 and was on pace to easily eclipse the $400 billion mark — then COVID-19 completely turned the market upside down.

The Department of Finance told department heads it will be re-evaluating budget requests under a workload budget scenario.

The timing of a $1.5 billion deal California had planned to price Thursday is no longer firm amid massive dislocations in the markets.

The stock market plunge amid the COVID-19 pandemic increases the risk of a revenue shock for California and other states that depend on capital gains taxes.

The municipal market was hammered Wednesday by the COVID-19 pandemic with a more than quarter point correction in AAA benchmarks, issuers pulling deals off the shelves and more reports of pricing and evaluation confusion.

Uncertainty continues to hang over financial markets due to COVID-19. Stocks rebounded somewhat Tuesday while muni yields rose as much as 16 basis points — Tuesday saw a correction of sorts.

The municipal bond market will see a slew of supply price this week as issuers and investors buffeted by uncertainty, volatility and outright panic. California is selling $2.2 billion of GO bonds, which investors will seek out as a safe haven in these unstable times.

As fear and uncertainty over COVID-19 rapidly grow, it has sent yields for both municipals and Treasuries to never before seen low levels — begging the question if we could see zero or negative yields here in the States?

The world remains on edge about the rapidly spreading COVID-19 and those fears once again have Treasury yields digging down even deeper. COVID-19 fears have now impacted fund flows, as municipals suffers outflows for the first time in 60 weeks.

It was a busy day in the primary, as the markets continue to deal with crosscurrents of COVID-19 and election results.

The Federal Open Market Committee cut the fed funds rate 50 basis points to a range between 1% and 1.25%. The decision to cut rates was unanimous.

The municipal bond market is in for another action-packed week, with above-average issuance and COVID-19 still spreading rapidly.

Taxable bonds and COVID-19 are two of the main catalysts that helped February municipal bond volume ascend to its highest level since at least 1986.

Municipal market technicals were already driving performance and so the strong quality bid has deepened the rally across the curve as the asset class really didn’t need to grab the U.S. Treasuries coattails all that tightly.

Issuers in the Far West sold $85 billion of municipal bonds in 2019, a 23% increase from 2018.

Municipal bond yields were unchanged at record low levels, according to late reads.

As COVID-19 fears run rampant, investors continued to sell off equities, resulting in muni yields again following Treasury yields down to all-time lows.

Municipal bonds yields continued their descent and once again rewrote the record books, as the flight to safety on fears of COVID-19 that took place Friday picked up right where it left off.

Slightly more than half of likely California voters support Proposition 13, according to a poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The market got technically stronger and the new-issue calendar builds.