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Contact: Jennifer A. Galloway, Chief Communications Officer
             (703) 797-6600
             jgalloway@msrb.org

MSRB PUBLISHES QUARTERLY MUNICIPAL MARKET STATISTICS

Alexandria, VA – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) today released statistics on second quarter 2012 municipal market trading data, continuing disclosure documents submitted to the MSRB and other figures for the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market. The MSRB, which regulates the municipal market, is an independent source of data on the market and operates the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA®) website.

Among the second quarter 2012 highlights:

  • Par amount traded in the municipal securities market the second quarter of 2012 totaled $844,473 million, 3 percent higher than the $819,183 million traded in the same period one year ago and the highest quarterly volume since the third quarter 2011. Compared to the previous three months, the first quarter of 2012, par amount traded increased 7 percent.
  • The number of variable rate demand obligation (VRDO) interest rate resets continued their decline, totaling 207,702 in the second quarter of 2012, the lowest quarterly total since the MSRB began collecting VRDO reset information in April 2009.
  • The number of continuing disclosure documents received by the MSRB totaled 35,580 in the second quarter, compared to 32,342 documents in the same period of 2011. Bond call disclosures accounted for 40 percent of all reported disclosures the second quarter of 2012. Audited financial statements or comprehensive annual financial Report (CAFR) disclosures accounted for 20 percent while annual financial information and operating data disclosures accounted for 14 percent of the quarter’s total.  

All quarterly statistical summaries include aggregate market information for different types of municipal issues and trades, and the number of interest rate resets for variable rate demand obligations and auction rate securities. The data also include statistics related to continuing disclosure documents received through the MSRB’s EMMA website. Daily and historical summaries of trade data based on security type, size, sector, maturity, source of repayment and coupon type are housed in EMMA’s Market Statistics section.

The EMMA website is a centralized online database operated by the MSRB that provides free public access to official disclosure documents and trade data associated with municipal bonds issued in the United States. In addition to current credit rating information, the EMMA website also makes available real-time trade data and primary market and continuing disclosure documents for over one million outstanding municipal bonds, as well as current interest rate information, liquidity documents and other information for most variable rate municipal securities.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) protects and strengthens the municipal bond market, enabling access to capital, economic growth, and societal progress in tens of thousands of communities across the country. The MSRB fulfills this mission by creating trust in our market through informed regulation of dealers and municipal advisors that protects investors, issuers and the public interest; building technology systems that power our market and provide transparency for issuers, institutions, and the investing public; and serving as the steward of market data that empowers better decisions and fuels innovation for the future. The MSRB is a self-regulatory organization governed by a board of directors that has a majority of public members, in addition to representatives of regulated entities. The MSRB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.

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