BMO Capital Markets

Nederlandse Waterschapsbank on Thursday became the latest issuer to tap into a hot summer market for dollars, increasing a tap from its initial size while printing flat to its curve.

Public sector issuers are taking advantage of strong summer conditions in the dollar market to bring green and arbitrage-style deals, with more issuance expected next week.

The dollar market is grinding on throughout the summer, with public sector borrowers pushing out deals at the short end, although none have been in benchmark size this week. Two issuers launched transactions on Tuesday with a third slated to follow on Wednesday.

Two European agencies are set to launch dollar transactions on Tuesday, defying any talk of a summer slowdown to take advantage of supportive conditions.

A pair of three year prints in dollars provoked very different reactions from GC BondMarker voters in the second quarter. Read on to find out more in this week’s BondMarker round-up, which looks at the most notable dollar deals of the last quarter.

The Province of Alberta on Wednesday passed its first bond market test since suffering a double downgrade from S&P in May. Bankers away from the trade said it was a “good outcome”, despite having to pay a bit of concession — unlike most other dollar deals over the last few weeks.

A surfeit of sterling liquidity drove demand for covered bonds to new heights this week with exceptional deal executions seen in two Canadian bank transactions, raising the likelihood that a UK bank will soon follow.

On Tuesday, Bank of Montreal (BMO) issued the largest sterling covered bond from an overseas bank in almost three years at the tightest spread of any sterling covered bond in over two years. The level BMO achieved was far cheaper than would have been possible in euros or dollars.

A call by US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin this week to lessen the capital burden on banks had a bigger effect on US rates than a well telegraphed Federal Reserve target rate rise, creating some breathing space in long end swap spreads. That could ease long dated public sector bond issuance, but with euro market offering enviable duration funding, there may not be a queue of borrowers ready to print, writes Craig McGlashan.

Kommunalbanken built a doubly subscribed book on Tuesday for a long three year dollar deal that bankers said should give confidence to the market after a similar trade from KommuneKredit two weeks ago fell short of full subscription.

A pair of SSAs are set to nip in with dollar deals ahead of a US Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Wednesday at which investors overwhelmingly expect a target rate rise — although the strength of that expectation has dipped slightly.

KfW is the solitary SSA issuer out in dollars so far this week, and it is sticking to the very short end with an 18 month deal, a week before a US Federal Open Market Committee meeting at which investors overwhelmingly believe it will raise its target rate.