Municipal yields flatten to end week; Bay Area Toll Authority, Puerto Rico prep offerings

By Sheri Kasprzak

New York, June 18 - Municipals ended the week flat after struggling early in the week, market insiders reported. Meanwhile, a new crop of issues stacked up on the negotiated calendar, including major deals from the Bay Area Toll Authority in California and the Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corp.

"It's a tough market, but it's also a situation where some issuers are looking at what they need for the fiscal year," said one sellside source. "I think a lot of issuers are going to have to take a really hard look at how little they can get by with."

In secondary market activity, trading remained light and yields were flat. The earlier part of the week saw yields up by as much as 5 basis points.

"It is truly dead around here," noted the trader. "Yields aren't moving very much."

Looking to the coming week's activity, the Bay Area Toll Authority of California is set to bring to market $1.7 billion in series 2010 subordinate toll bridge revenue bonds Thursday, according to a calendar of upcoming deals.

The bonds (A1/A+/) will be sold on a negotiated basis with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. as the lead managers.

Also coming up in the week, Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing plans to price its previously announced $1.572 billion in series 2010 revenue bonds on Tuesday, according to a sales calendar.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.