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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 for the third quarter of 2012, including 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 third quarter 2012 highlights:

  • Par amount traded in the municipal securities market between July and September 2012 totaled $794.9 billion, 6.7 percent lower than the $851.4 billion traded in the same period one year ago.
  • In the third quarter of 2012, a revenue anticipation bond from the State of California ranked first in terms of par traded with $12.7 billion. In terms of number of trades, a Puerto Rico public improvement refunding bond was the most actively traded with 5,591 trades.
  • Customer buying activity decreased to an average daily par amount of $6.3 billion in the third quarter of 2012, compared to $6.9 billion in the same period last year.

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 pertaining 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 displayed 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. 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. 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. 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. MSRB is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress.