South Florida Arbitration & Litigation Lawyer Blog
March, 2012:
MSRB RECEIVES SEC APPROVAL TO BEGIN DISPLAYING INTER-DEALER YIELD DATA ON THE EMMA WEBSITE
Recently, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB) received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to begin displaying on the MSRB’s Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA®) website price and yield data for municipal securities transactions between dealers. Inter-dealer yields will be displayed on the EMMA website beginning April 30, 2012.
“The display of inter-dealer yield data on the EMMA website will expand the amount and type of information available to municipal market participants,” said MSRB Executive Director Lynnette Kelly. “Investors and other market stakeholders will now have access to comparable data when making investment decisions.”
The EMMA website currently displays dollar prices and yields for municipal securities transactions between dealers and customers; however, yields are not displayed for transactions between dealers. The changes approved by the SEC will result in yields on inter-dealer transactions being displayed on the EMMA website in the same manner as the dollar price and yield for customer transactions. The addition of inter-dealer yield data to the EMMA website will improve the usefulness of the information available on EMMA and contribute to increased municipal market transparency.
Recent enhancements to the EMMA website include the display of current credit ratings for municipal securities provided by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s, creation of a mobile-friendly version of the EMMA website, customized email alerts for municipal securities and the ability to receive an end-of-day email alert when a particular security trades.
The MSRB recently published a long-range plan to guide the evolution of its market transparency products. The long-range plan establishes a vision for an enhanced EMMA website as the central public dissemination hub supported by additional information, improved commercial dissemination of data and customized functionality. Read more about the MSRB’s long-range plan for market transparency products.
The MSRB’s EMMA website is a centralized online database that provides free public access to official disclosure documents and trade data associated with municipal bonds issued in the United States. The EMMA website makes available real-time trade prices, primary market and continuing disclosure documents, and current credit ratings for more than one million outstanding securities, as well as current interest rate information, liquidity documents and other information for most variable rate municipal securities.