Primary bond market

The market is being led more by supply and demand than ratios or even rates. As ratios sit at extremely tight levels, there are buyers engaging at these levels, but large amounts of cash continue to sit on the sidelines.

Costanzo is only the fourth woman to lead a municipal banking division. Huntington has hired Citi's entire Midwest public finance banking group, and Costanzo said the firm intends to further grow its footprint in the municipal space.

Cabrera Capital Markets is welcoming three new public finance hires who are joining the firm from UBS: Shawn Dralle, Shawnell Holman and Chris Bergstrom.

It was a good day for munis with larger deals clearing the primary and secondary trading showing a more constructive tone with triple-A yields falling a few basis points amid a stronger session for all markets.

Harvard and Princeton coming to market is a "huge sign of confidence," said Clare Pickering, a Barclays strategist.

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority are planning several note and bond sales this month as well as several remarketings, the MTA said.

The North Dakota Housing Finance Agency recently priced $189 million of bonds for its home mortgage finance program, a sector in which issuance has increased.

Large deals were repriced to lower yields while the secondary market was lightly traded, leading to little changed triple-A yield curves and underperformance to Treasury market gains. Despite a growing calendar, the supply demand imbalance remains with much cash on the sidelines.

The muni market "exhibited similar themes from the past few weeks as extremely rich valuations and the upcoming unfavorable supply/demand picture have led to a measured buyer base," said Birch Creek Capital strategists in a report.

The city and its related issuers picked financial advisors to work on upcoming bond deals, including GO issuances, TFA deals and water authority sales.

The bank has also hired some analysts to its infrastructure group over the past several weeks as it plans to beef up its muni team.

The negotiated calendar is led by the Regents of the University of California with nearly $1 billion of general revenue bonds.

High rates and high inflation, coupled with rich reserves, pushed off or delayed issuers coming to market in 2023, noted James Pruskowski, chief investment officer at 16Rock Asset Management.

Municipals look poised to close out February a touch in the black following a more constructive tone Thursday after being in a 'holding pattern' for much of the past two weeks.

Issuance is already slated to be healthy next week, with some large deals on the calendar.

Three of the hires are group heads in public sector and structured finance businesses at the firm.

Munis should remain well bid until issuance picks up "dramatically," said Nuveen's Anders S. Persson and Daniel J. Close.

The authority is one of the few investment-grade U.S. issuers actively selling triple-tax-exempt paper.

CreditSights said states with the largest payments are Texas at $2 billion, Pennsylvania at $1.5 billion, South Carolina at $1.3 billion and California at $1.2 billion

With a recent court ruling and higher interest rates in their favor, more issuers are likely call back their outstanding BABs using the extraordinary redemption provision.