MSRB: municipal security trades fall by 16% in 2014; par volume slumps

By Susanna Moon

Chicago, Feb. 25 – The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board said that the number of municipal securities trades dropped by 16% in 2014, compared with the previous year.

Meanwhile, submissions of continuing disclosures grew nearly 19% during the same period, according to a press release by the MSRB.

Par volume traded for municipal securities was about $2.77 trillion in 2014, down 11% from 2013 and nearly 60% percent lower than the peak of $6.69 trillion traded in 2007, according to the press release.

The amount traded marks the lowest volume in more than a decade, the MSRB said.

The data was gathered by the MSRB and published in its annual Fact Book, which the group says is the only online sourcebook that analyzes trading data, continuing disclosure documents and other statistics for the $3.6 trillion municipal bond market.

The 8.91 million total number of trades in 2014 is 16% lower than 2013 and is the lowest level since 2006, when 8.47 million trades were executed.

Nearly 11,000 annual and audited disclosures were submitted in December 2014, the most in a single month since the MSRB became the official repository for continuing disclosures, the release said.

The number of interest rate resets for variable rate demand obligations and auction rate securities fell 12% and 23%, respectively.

The new edition of the Fact Book provides monthly, quarterly and yearly aggregate market information from 2010 to 2014, and it covers different types of municipal issues, trades and interest rate resets, the release noted.

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