Primary bond market

Municipals are tethered to Treasuries, more so in recent sessions, and have cheapened, but strong technicals — $18.5 billion of net negative supply and large reinvestment needs — still hang overhead.

Triple-A benchmarks saw cuts of one to two basis points across the curve, but still outperformed two days of UST weakness and have outperformed UST losses since the start of the month.

Better-than-expected job gains, a rising UST complex and an increase in supply to test municipals' resolve.

Secondary trading petered off into Thursday afternoon, holding triple-A benchmarks steady as most participants await Friday's nonfarm payrolls.

The short end of the market has little room to fall lower.

With all eyes on Friday’s employment report, since several additional strong months of gains are needed for the Federal Reserve to be comfortable announcing a tapering of its asset purchases, Wednesday’s news could signal trouble.

Tighter bidding on bonds 10 years and in pushed high-grade benchmark curves to bump yields.

Municipals returned 0.83% in July with a year-to-date return of 1.90%. High-yield returned 1.20% in July and 7.40% year-to-date. Taxables led July with 1.65% returns and 1.95% for the year.

Michigan is bringing $855 million of state trunk line fund bonds to market Tuesday for road and bridge projects.

The city sees room for a new convention hotel, despite nearby competition and pandemic-related setbacks.

Muni participants await a new month with growing issuance, but perhaps not quite enough as issuers are hesitant to add more debt before final word from Washington on infrastructure.

July volume was $31.9 billion keeping the annual pace ahead of last year's record-breaking total. Issuance still lags demand by a large amount — $60 billion by many accounts for August alone — as redemptions coupon payments pile up.

Washington GOs came at tighter spreads than a spring sale in the competitive market while sizable negotiated deals saw bumps in repricings. Refinitiv Lipper reported $1.4 billion of inflows in the 21st consecutive week.

The massive summer reinvestment into municipal bond mutual funds continue and are both sustaining the strength of investor demand and solidifying the technical footing of the market.

The economy continues to recover, with durable goods orders and consumer confidence suggesting strength, but concerns about the Delta variant of COVID-19 and continued supply-chain problems cloud the future outlook.

With municipal yields at exceedingly low absolute levels, the spread tightening between credits also continues.

The last week of July marks a lighter calendar while August redemptions are huge compared to the expected supply. Investors need to get in line and likely accept lower yields and continued historically low ratios.

Low ratios, low yields and massive demand are leading to a market that is mostly on its own. Refinitiv Lipper reported $1.7 billion of inflows.

The larger new issues and aggressive swings in taxables had investors on guard as triple-A curves were pressured outside 10-years, but the asset class still vastly outperformed UST while ICI reports nearly $3 billion more inflows.

Negotiated deals were repriced to lower yields while competitive deals saw levels coming in through triple-A benchmarks. High-grade benchmarks were little changed.