Primary bond market

After a four-year absence, Utah’s Intermountain Power Agency returns to the municipal market with nearly $552 million of power supply revenue bonds.

Columbus is offering $423 million to municipal bond investors in a mix of new money, refunding, tax-exempt and taxable debt.

The new-issue calendar tops $9 billion led by $3 billion taxable and tax-exempts from University of California Regents, a $1 billion plus healthcare deal from Michigan and $1.35 billion of GOs from Washington State.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds in the latest week, with Refinitiv Lipper reporting $3.548 billion of outflows, down from $4.106 billion of outflows in the previous week.

The Investment Company Institute reported investors pulled $7.2 billion from municipal bond mutual funds, the largest figure since the outlier months of March 2020 when investors yanked $24 billion in two weeks.

The significant cheapening of municipals in recent weeks continues to create headwinds for the overall tax-exempt market on a daily basis.

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The Iowa Fertilizer Co. will refund its Midwestern Disaster Area revenue bonds with a new structure that yields higher Fitch, Moody's and S&P ratings.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds last week, with Refinitiv Lipper reporting $4.106 billion of outflows, bring the total to $22.3 billion of outflows year-to-date.

Like last week, supply for the new-calendar issuance is light at $4.804 billion with $3.182 billion of negotiated deals and $1.622 billion of competitive loans.

The second quarter should bring more opportunity and less volatility following the worst quarter in four decades, analysts said.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds as the Investment Company Institute on Wednesday reported $4.786 billion of outflows, up from $4.459 billion of outflows in the previous week.

The the $389.495 million of tax-exempts were sold late last month to help fund construction of the Broward County Convention Center Headquarters Hotel.

Denver will head to the municipal market next week with its biggest new money general obligation bond sale ever at $366.4 million.

Apollo will make an equity and credit investment that will significantly increase SWS’s underwriting capacity for municipal and corporate debt, as well as equity offerings, the firms said.

The March consumer price index offered little to deter the Federal Reserve from its aggressive plans, but markets saw it as a positive, having feared an upside miss.

Triple-A yields continue to rise, with the two-year muni just below 2%, the five well above and the 10-year approaching 2.5%.

Supply for the holiday-shortened week is $4.8 billion. Municipals performed the worst since 1980 in the first quarter of 2022, but some analysts see the pain subsiding.

Investors pulled more from municipal bond mutual funds in the latest week, with Refinitiv Lipper reporting $3.247 billion of outflows, of that $1 billion was high-yield. ETFs are still seeing inflows.