Municipal New Issuance: Last week, the negotiated calendar totaled to approximately $12 billion with the largest deals being the $1.3 billion Louisiana Public Facilities Authority AMT issue followed by the Long Island Power Authority which issued just over $1 billion. The third largest deal of last week was the Florida Development Finance Corporation which issued $985 million. AmeriVet was in 2 deals this past week, the first as a Co-Manager for the $659 million Trustees of the California State University System which included taxable bonds and tax-exempt Systemwide Revenue Bonds. As a Selling-Group-Member, AmeriVet participated on the $150 million South Carolina State Housing Finance and Development Authority transaction which consisted of Mortgage Revenue Bonds. With the volatility in the markets, we did see a few issuers pull their deals last week such as the City of Chicago and Tennessee Hospitals.

Municipal Secondary Trading: Last week, secondary trading totaled to about $41 billion with 53% of trades being dealer sells. With the recent increase in volatility in the markets, clients’ bids-wanted was just over $5.5 billion compared to the prior week’s bids-wanted of $4.2 billion according to Bloomberg data.

Municipal Spreads: Muni yields finally rose this past week after a five-week rally with 10-year notes rising by 8.6 basis points to end the week at 2.68%. Although we did see yields rise this past week, we did see munis outperform Treasuries as the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio is now yielding 67.28% compared to the prior week when the ratio was at 68.2%. We did see the muni curve steepen this past week by 11.5 basis points to end the week at 96 basis points.

According to LSEG Lipper Fund Flows data, muni bond funds saw investors add about $671 million to their funds which follows the prior weeks inflow of $1.1 billion. This is the sixth week in a row of muni bond inflows as investors continue to gain confidence that the Fed will cut rates in September.

This past week, we saw some volatility in the markets as the markets rallied in the first half of the week but end the week off with a sell-off into Friday’s close. The volatility this past week also pushed a few deals into a day-to-day status such as the City of Chicago deal and the Tennessee Hospital deal which delayed their deal after yields rose during the sale. We should expect to see some more issuers delay their issuance in anticipation of the September Fed meeting. Despite the rise in yields this past week, muni returns are still positive for the month with positive returns of .51% giving us a year-to-date returns of 1.01%.

Municipal Supply: The negotiated calendar for the week will have an expected volume of approximately $6.2 billion. The largest deals of the week will be the  $700 million Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority for the MTA Bridges and tunnel followed by the $266 million Board of Regents of University of Houston issuance. AmeriVet will be participating in one deal this week as a Selling-Group-Member for the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development which will be issuing $100 million in taxable bonds and $47 million in tax-exempt bonds. With about five weeks until the Fed meeting in September, we could see new issuances slow down in anticipation of a Fed rate decision.