State of Texas

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.

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.

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

New deals started to flow in and take advantage of historic lows of muni yields and rates.

Issuance is set to seesaw, as new-issue volume was the heaviest of the year last week, at almost 40% larger than 2019 weekly average. And this is expected to be one of the lowest-volume weeks of the year to date.

Lack of supply continues while professional money keeps market liquid.

The municipal market started off the week like gangbusters, but was ending very quietly on Thursday as the holiday-shortened week approaches.

The municipal primary saw billions of new deals hit the market, but the final yields on the biggest deal of the day result in something that the market hadn’t seen in a while — a repricing to higher yields.

The muni primary saw a flood of issuance on Tuesday, with the majority of it being from Texas issuers including one deal that got majorly upsized.

Issuers are coming to market in droves this week as they try to take advantage of excellent market conditions and get deals done before upcoming holiday shortened week.

Municipal investors should go long as the short end is expensive, strategists say.

It's a win-win situation for both buyers and sellers as volume continues to flow into the market.