Primary bond market

The district plans to price about $100 million of bonds Thursday, the first since Gov. Ron DeSantis took over control of it by appointing its board of supervisors.

The University of Arizona, which was hit with negative rating outlooks earlier this year, scheduled a debt refunding led by Morgan Stanley for Wednesday.

Muni yields were cut up two to five basis points, depending on the curve, while UST yields rose five to seven basis points, pushing the 10-year UST yields above 4%.

Cleveland returns to market Wednesday in the first of two bond deals this month. That $64.4 million GO deal funds public parks, bridges and road improvements.

Municipal investors can expect just shy of $10 billion of new issues from which to choose the first full week of October and the fourth quarter, led by a $1.5 billion taxable general obligation bond offering from New York City. Connecticut is bringing $935 million of general obligation bonds.

Municipal bond mutual funds saw inflows of $1.879 billion in the latest week, marking the 14th consecutive week of inflows and the highest level of 2024, per LSEG data, reiterating the strong investor support for this market.

This surge in demand "is no coincidence — it's the result of weeks of relentless inflows, further amplified by the Federal Reserve's recent rate cut," said 16Rock Asset Management CIO James Pruskowski.

The biggest theme within the muni market — and what is responsible for its performance — is the amount of cash on the sidelines, with $6-plus trillion in money market funds and close to $2.5 trillion in certificates of deposits, said Julio Bonilla, a fixed-income portfolio manager at Schroders.

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The larger supply calendar should be "taken down well given the persistent inflows into our market and investors are still sitting on plenty of cash," said Daryl Clements, a municipal portfolio manager at AllianceBernstein.

"As September draws to a close, some dynamics may prevail in October but others could undergo a shift," said NewSquare Capital's Kim Olsan. "One aspect that will continue is the level of supply coming to market." 

September volume came in over $44 billion leading volume year-to-date to hit more than $380 billion, just shy of 2023's full-year total issuance.

Bonds will finance construction of the South Coast Rail Project, which will restore commuter rail service between Boston and southeastern Massachusetts.

Municipal triple-A yield curves closed out the week with few changes, valuations were little changed, but at attractive levels, and the forward calendar climbs to more than $10 billion to open the fourth quarter.

Minneapolis will sell $123.6 million of Series 2024 general obligation bonds via competitive sale on Tuesday, buoyed by triple-A bond ratings.

High-yield muni issuance totals $20 billion year-to-date, "reflecting normalization from relatively depressed levels in 2023 ($7.6 billion over the comparable period), and now virtually equal to the trailing five-year average for the period ($20.1 billion)," said J.P. Morgan strategists, led by Peter DeGroot.

Matthew McQueen, Head of Municipal Banking and Markets and Global Mortgages within the Global Markets business at Bank of America, sits down with Bond Buyer Executive Editor Lynne Funk to talk about getting deals done amid an uncertain global macroeconomic landscape.

The Investment Company Institute reported $1.329 billion of inflows into municipal bond mutual funds for the week ending Sept. 18 after $1.402 billion of inflows the week prior. Exchange-traded funds saw $55 million of inflows after $1.048 billion of inflows the previous week.

Demand for munis looks "fairly stable" for now, particularly after the 10- to 25-basis-point rally ended in the 30 days before the Federal Reserve cut rates last week, Municipal Market Analytics, Inc. said, noting the "bull-steepening adjustment" looks like the 30-day move before the beginning of the Fed's last cutting cycle, at the end of July 2019.

S&P Global Ratings placed more than 400 state and local government issuers under criteria observation as the agency adopts an updated rating methodology.