Primary bond market

Triple-A yields fell up to five basis points Friday while USTs were mixed. Munis still underperformed taxables on the week, but the setup for the asset class going into yearend is decidedly positive.

The $250 million of new money social bonds will finance public school construction projects, with another $190 million refunding debt issued to build schools.

Secondary trading showed clear strength across the yield curve Thursday with bellwether names trading up significantly from recent prints and original pricing levels. New-issues in the primary benefited with issuers repricing to lower yields and tight to triple-A curves.

Muni yields fell up to five basis points and dramatically underperformed USTs, as they are wont to do on FOMC days. Treasury yields fell as much as 29 basis points on the two-year and sent the 10-year down closer to the 4% threshold.

Issuers should "absolutely be issuing if possible; the end of year outlook is positive on the surface but substantial volatility lies just below and could arrest or interrupt what have been easier primary market conditions," said MMA's Matt Fabian.

The weakness came as the new-issue calendar grew to $5.9 billion with the addition of a $900 million refunding deal from the Illinois State Highway Toll Highway Authority slated for Thursday. Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply sits at $6.95 billion.

Nuveen's marquee fund has seen the worst performance among the largest high-yield funds so far this year.

The new-issue calendar comes in just over $3 billion, of which is $847 million of state personal income tax revenue bonds from the Empire State Development in three competitive sales.

LSEG Lipper reported Thursday that investors pulled $144.5 million from muni mutual funds for the week ending Wednesday after outflows of $58.9 million the week prior.

Municipal mutual fund losses continued last week as the Investment Company Institute Wednesday reported investors pulled $475 million from the funds in the week ending Nov. 29 after $97 million of outflows the previous week.

Fitch Ratings has raised the Turnpike Authority's ratings to BBB-plus from BBB and assigned BBB-plus ratings to the Series 2024 A&B senior lien turnpike revenue bonds and Series 2024 subordinated TIFIA loan.

"This week's new issue calendar should be well received," said Anders S. Persson, Nuveen's chief investment officer for global fixed income, and Daniel J. Close, Nuveen's head of municipals.

This week's $9.4 billion calendar "should easily be absorbed as it is set to be the last full primary calendar of the year, given the Fed meeting the following week and then Christmas and New Year's holidays," Birch Creek Capital strategists said in a weekly report.

The City Colleges of Chicago is planning to issue $201 million in unlimited tax GO refunding bonds, bolstered by an upgrade and a new positive rating outlook.

Pennsylvania leads the new-issue calendar with $2.1 billion of GOs in four series via the competitive market while the New York City TFA will bring another $1.4 billion of exempts and taxables.

Triple-A yields have fallen up to 95 basis points on the month, supply is up 7.8% year-over-year for November and the month is posting positive returns, which has, in turn, led to well over 3.50% returns year-to-date.

The continued drop in yields has been "buoyed by a broad rate rally and intra-market fundamentals that simply have created more buyers than sellers," noted Kim Olsan, senior vice president of municipal bond trading at FHN Financial.

Delayed over the summer amid rising interest rates, Miami-Dade County is now set to come to market with its taxable revenue bond sale for PortMiami.

Illinois spreads tightened considerably after ratings upgrades earlier this year. The state saw up to 10 bidders on $875 million of taxable and tax-exempt GOs.

While the muni market faces some headwinds, such as rich relative yields, near-term returns "are likely to be favorable for munis," said Cooper Howard, a fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab.