Securitization

As fear and uncertainty over COVID-19 rapidly grow, it has sent yields for both municipals and Treasuries to never before seen low levels — begging the question if we could see zero or negative yields here in the States?

The world remains on edge about the rapidly spreading COVID-19 and those fears once again have Treasury yields digging down even deeper. COVID-19 fears have now impacted fund flows, as municipals suffers outflows for the first time in 60 weeks.

Dan Scholl, head of municipal fixed income at Wilmington Trust, views munis as inefficient and retail oriented. However, he maintains credit has never been better. In managing $5 billion of assets in high-grade SMAs, he finds value in housing, healthcare and IDBs. John Hallacy hosts.

It was a busy day in the primary, as the markets continue to deal with crosscurrents of COVID-19 and election results.

The Federal Open Market Committee cut the fed funds rate 50 basis points to a range between 1% and 1.25%. The decision to cut rates was unanimous.

The MSRB's annual fact book showed that trading volume dipped 14% year over year.

The municipal bond market is in for another action-packed week, with above-average issuance and COVID-19 still spreading rapidly.

With each passing day, fears surrounding COVID-19 elevate as the equity sell-off pressed on. The biggest winners have and will continue to be muni issuers, as they are selling into a record low rate market.

Municipal market technicals were already driving performance and so the strong quality bid has deepened the rally across the curve as the asset class really didn’t need to grab the U.S. Treasuries coattails all that tightly.

Chris Mier, CFA of Loop Capital, says fiscal policy needs to achieve more at present and believes we are at a comfortable point in the credit cycle. Despite that conviction, he says the coronavirus will serve to slow growth. John Hallacy hosts.

Municipal bond yields were unchanged at record low levels, according to late reads.

As COVID-19 fears run rampant, investors continued to sell off equities, resulting in muni yields again following Treasury yields down to all-time lows.

The Fitch rating on the bonds, issued as part of the Midwestern Disaster Area authorization, remains deep in junk.

Municipal bonds yields continued their descent and once again rewrote the record books, as the flight to safety on fears of COVID-19 that took place Friday picked up right where it left off.

November's progressive income tax referendum looms large over Gov. J.B. Pritzker's proposed fiscal 2021 budget and the state's long-term fiscal prospects.

Bond yields keep grinding lower ahead of the largest issuance week of 2020, clocking in at $13 billion.

The market got technically stronger and the new-issue calendar builds.

Luis Maizel is co-founder of LM Capital, an employee-owned minority business in California. Maizel, one of the nation’s few Mexican-born fund and income managers, says he doesn’t see a recession coming. He also looks at U.S. GDP, inflation, interest rates and credit spreads amid the uncertainty of the U.S. election and the coronavirus expansion. Chip Barnett hosts.

New deals started to flow in and take advantage of historic lows of muni yields and rates.

Issuance is set to seesaw, as new-issue volume was the heaviest of the year last week, at almost 40% larger than 2019 weekly average. And this is expected to be one of the lowest-volume weeks of the year to date.