With yields on the U.S. municipal bond market rising, local issuers on Monday postponed another six bond sales, totaling $331 million, that were originally scheduled to price later this week. Since mid-June, the municipal bond market has seen a total of $2.6 billion in sales either canceled or delayed.
Reuters
Tuesday, 25 Jun 2013 | 6:08 AM ET
CNBC
With yields on the U.S. municipal bond market rising, local issuers on Monday postponed another six bond sales, totaling $331 million, that were originally scheduled to price later this week.
Since mid-June, on the prospect that the Federal Reserve could change course on its easy monetary policy as the economy improves, the municipal bond market has seen a total of $2.6 billion in sales either canceled or delayed.
Last week a total of nine deals for $2.3 billion were postponed.
On Monday prices in municipal bond market extended losses, with Municipal Market data preliminary reading showing AAA-rated municipal yields up by as much as 20 basis points.
On Friday, triple-A 10-year and 30-year bond yields rose to 2.63 percent and 3.96 percent, respectively, a high since August 2011, according to MMD, a unit of Thomson Reuters.
Georgia's $157.3 million refunding bond sale scheduled to price on Wednesday through competitive bidding has been postponed indefinitely, Diana Pope, director of the state's financing and investment division, said on Monday.
The sale consisted of $13.7 million of refunding bonds with serial maturities from 2019 through 2024 and another $143.6 million of refunding bonds with serial maturities from 2022 through 2024, according to the preliminary official statement.
The $685 million new money bond portion of the sale is going forward as planned on Wednesday, Pope said.
"The state plans to come to market again at the end of the calendar year and will revisit the refunding portion of the sale," she added.
Also on Monday, the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Authority's negotiated sale of $129 million of single family mortgage revenue bonds to be priced through RBC Capital Markets was postponed.
A Kentucky Fayette County School District Finance Corp.'s $35.5 million bond issue and the Kentucky Association of Counties Finance Corp.'s $3.15 million bond sale were also pulled from this week's competitive sale calendar.
In addition, a Plymouth, Wisconsin $3.1 million combined utility revenue refunding deal and a $2.8 million general improvement refunding bond issue for New Jersey's Springfield Township were also postponed.
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