MSRB Monthly Update - November 2011

Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board sent this bulletin at 11/11/2011 10:37 AM EST

The MSRB will soon display municipal securities credit ratings on its EMMA® website.

Check EMMA for updates.

Before July 1983, municipal securities were issued in certificate form with coupons attached. These were known as "bearer bonds."

Highlight of the Month

The MSRB this month launched an online “toolkit” for state and local governments as part of its work to protect municipal entities under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

The toolkit provides information to state and local governments about issuing bonds as it relates to regulations governing financial professionals, as well as instructions for using the MSRB’s Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA®) website. The EMMA website allows state and local governments to easily make bond disclosure documents available to the public.

New and Noteworthy

Municipal advisors are required to be registered with the MSRB and the Securities and Exchange Commission. As of October 31, 2011, 753 municipal advisors were registered with the MSRB*.

Click on map for larger view.

Approximately 75 percent of registered municipal advisors are not affiliated with a municipal securities dealer or bank. The remaining 25 percent of registered municipal advisors are also registered with the MSRB as dealers or banks. About 14 percent of all registered municipal advisors are based in the state of New York with 10 percent being from New York City alone**. The other two largest states in terms of number of registered advisors are California, accounting for 12 percent, and Illinois with 7 percent. The northeast region accounted for 34 percent of all registrants, while the Midwest, Far West, Southeast and Southwest accounted for 22, 16, 15 and 13 percent, respectively.

See a complete list of MSRB-registered municipal advisors.

*Includes 28 municipal advisors that have not finalized their registration.

**Geographic location is based on address provided during registration.

Third Quarter Market Statistics

The MSRB recently released market statistics for third quarter 2011 trading data and other figures for the $3.7 trillion municipal bond market. Third quarter 2011 highlights include:

Par amount traded in the municipal securities market in 2011:Q3 totaled $851.4 billion, the highest quarterly volume in 2011.
Customer buying activity decreased to an average daily par amount of $6.9 billion in 2011:Q3, compared to $7.5 billion in the same period last year.
The number of continuing disclosure documents received by the MSRB totaled 25,463 in 2011:Q3, up 3% from the 24,727 documents submitted in the same period of 2010.

Click here to view the statistics.

Regulatory Roundup

Below is a list of recently-issued MSRB regulatory notices:

MSRB Requests Comment on Updating the Definition of Sophisticated Municipal Market Professional

(November 8, 2011)

MSRB Announces Changes to Registration of Municipal Securities Professionals and Reminds Principals of their Supervisory Obligations (November 7, 2011)

MSRB Files Amendments to Underwriter Fair Dealing Proposal (November 3, 2011)

MSRB Files with the SEC Amendments to Rule G-16 and Rule G-9 (October 13, 2011)

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