Featured Municipal Bond in the Market, Week of 06/27/2016: Commonwealth of Massachusetts

This week’s featured bond comes from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which scheduled to issue a total of $892 million in general obligation bonds, secured by the full faith and credit of the Commonwealth, the week of June 27, 2016. The bonds are scheduled in three separate issues; $200 million to reimburse the Commonwealth for capital expenditures, $442 million for the purposes of refunding previously issued bonds, and $250 million for the purposes of reimbursing the state for green projects, including stormwater, energy efficiency, and environmental remediation projects. Further details can be found in Massachusetts’ official statements, provided by MuniOS. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has an unemployment rate of 3.8% as of May 2016; which is lower than the national average of 4.7%.

Provided at left is a quick snapshot of financial characteristics of Massachusetts, compared with the sector medians for all 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.