Featured Municipal Bond in the Market, Week of 08/29/2016: State of California General Obligation Bonds.
This week’s featured bond comes from the State of California. The Golden State is scheduled to issue $2.7 billion in general obligation bonds the week of August 29, 2016. These bonds are scheduled to be issued as a single series, but are to be split into $615 million various purpose construction bonds, and $2.1 billion in refunding bonds. The construction bonds are for funding projects, such as the Children’s Hospital Bond Act of 2004. The refunding bonds are to be used to refund previously issued bonds on projects like the California Safe Drinking Water Bond Law of 1988. The bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the State of California. These details and more on purposes, security, and other matters pertaining to these California general obligation bonds can the found in the official statement, provided by MuniOS.
The State of California currently has an unemployment rate of 5.9% as of July 2016, up 0.2% from June, but down 0.6% from July 2015. California’s unemployment rate is 1.0% higher than the national rate of 4.9%.
Provided at left is a quick snapshot of financial characteristics of the State of California, along with the medians for other states, courtesy of Merritt Research Services, LLC. Merritt has many of the sector medians publicly available and regularly updated on their Benchmark Central page. (Merritt believes the data to be reliable but does not make any representations as to its accuracy or completeness). In addition to the Merritt information related to the featured bond, more information can be found on our municipal bond calendar, city, state, and county pages, and our employment database. These facts and numbers are for informational purposes, and should not be considered an official disclosure for potential investors. Investors should consult the official statement. None of the information provided should be construed as a recommendation by MuniNet Guide, MuniNet LLC, Merritt Research Services LLC, or any of their employees. Information and analysis is for informational purposes only.