Municipal New Issuance: The negotiated calendar for the last week totaled to $6.4 billion with the largest deal being the $950 million New York City Transitional Finance Authority, where AmeriVet participated as a selling group member. Met Washington DC Airports issued $754 million in revenue bonds for the Dulles Metrorail & Capital Improvements Project. New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority issued $750 million in revenue bonds.

Municipal Secondary Trading: Secondary trading volume dip slightly from the prior week with trading volume at roughly $23.56 billion compared to the first week of January of roughly $25.71 billion in trades. Majority of the trades were dealers selling to clients with 52% of all trades going to clients. According to Bloomberg clients’ bids-wanted did increase for the week with bids-wanted totaling to $5.12 billion for the week, up from the prior week of $3.72 billion. Thursday was the highest amount of bonds investors put out for the bid since April 2020, with the total par amount being $1.4 billion.

Municipal Spread: Municipal bonds continue their slide this week with yields on 10-year notes rising again to 1.31% an increase of 8.5 basis points. One month ago, yields on 10-year notes were at 1.05%. 10-year yields have climbed over 25 basis points since the start of the year the highest jump since May 2020. With municipal bonds yields rising for the week, they did lag compared to Treasuries with the bonds maturing in 10-years now yielding 74.58% a week ago those ratios were at 68.66%. With yields rising across the municipal bonds, we did see the bond curve flatten last week by 2.4 basis points to 119 basis points.

For the first time in ten months municipal-bond mutual funds saw investors pull cash out as the municipal bond market heads towards its works monthly performance in almost a year. Investors for the week ended Wednesday pulled $239 million from those mutual funds marking the end of 45 straight weeks of inflows. Although, we had net outflows for the week we did seen investors put $182 million into high-yield funds.

Municipal bonds continue their rocky start with yields climbing to levels we have not scene May 2020 when States and Local governments debt was in recovery mode from the Covid-19 pandemic that sent yields soaring. Ten-year municipal bonds have risen 25 basis points since the start of the year which follows the rise in rates follows Treasuries yields as they have risen also 25 basis point since the start of the year. With the anticipation that the Federal Reserve interest-rate hike in March many traders are pricing their bonds to this hike, so they are not caught of guard. Municipal bond prices should continue to feel the pressure as Treasuries rates continue their upwards trend. Municipal bonds are down 1.32% so far this year while Treasuries have lost 2.24% for the year, with Municipal bonds on track for their worst monthly performance since February 2021.

Municipal Supply: This week’s negotiated calendar will have an expected volume of just over $5.1 billion for the week which is slightly down from last week’s volume of $6.4 billion. The largest deal of the week will be the much anticipated $894 million Brightline West Passenger Rail project that will connect Las Vegas with Southern California. The second largest deal of the week will be the $747 million Airport Commission of the City and County of San Francisco International Airport.