MSRB Publishes 2010 Municipal Bond Fact Book

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 9, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) today released its 2010 Fact Book, an annual sourcebook that analyzes trading data and other statistics for the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market. The Fact Book includes analysis on nearly all of the 50 million municipal trades that occurred in the market over the last five years and provides key municipal market statistics unavailable elsewhere.

The 2010 Fact Book includes, for the first time, statistics related to the type, frequency and tax status of interest rate resets for auction rate securities and variable rate demand obligations.

Also new this year are statistics related to continuing disclosure and primary market documents submitted to the MSRB's Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) system. EMMA became the sole official repository for continuing disclosure about municipal bonds in July 2009 and the 2010 Fact Book contains the first full year of continuing disclosure data.

Among the Fact Book's thousands of data points:

• The 10.49 million municipal securities trades in 2010 were the second-highest yearly activity following the record 10.98 million trades set in 2008.
• Build America Bonds helped push the number of taxable municipal securities traded to 1.1 million, nearly double the 567,669 securities traded in 2009.
• The par amount of variable rate securities traded, consisting primarily of VRDOs and ARS, increased in 2010 for the first time since 2007 to $1.58 trillion.

The MSRB's market information transparency programs promote transparency and access to real-time, municipal market bond information. The MSRB makes this information available free of charge on its EMMA website, at emma.msrb.org. 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 MSRB plans to begin publishing quarterly reports of municipal market data similar to that found on an annual basis in the Fact Book. These reports will provide market participants with updated trade data and statistics every three months.

Electronic copies of the Fact Book can be found on the Publications page of the MSRB's website at www.msrb.org, as well as in the Market Statistics section of the MSRB's EMMA website at www.emma.msrb.org.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) protects investors, issuers of municipal securities and entities whose credit stands behind municipal securities, and public pension plans by promoting a fair and efficient municipal market. The MSRB fulfills this mission by regulating securities firms, banks and municipal advisors that engage in municipal securities and advisory activities. To further protect market participants, the MSRB promotes disclosure and market transparency through its Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website, provides education and conducts extensive outreach. The MSRB has operated under Congressional mandate with oversight by the Securities and Exchange Commission since 1975.

SOURCE Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB)