Municipal Market Data's TM3 Web site implemented a number of changes yesterday to cope with a rapidly shifting landscape in municipals.
TM3 now features a Build America Bonds page, which shows a calendar of deals, a recap of new issues, and market commentary.
The site will also offer a benchmark generic yield curve for BABs. Yesterday, 10-year single-A BABs were trading at a spread of about 140 basis points over 10-year Treasuries, according to the MMD scale.
"We've been getting requests since the program was born from our clients to create some benchmarks relating to the BAB market, and provide primary and secondary market color on this growing segment of the marketplace as well," said Robert Nelson, a municipal analyst with Thomson Reuters.
The site integrated Reuters' municipal news feed to TM3 news and added underlying ratings to the information available in a Muniview Cusip Search.
TM3 is also including statistics, historical data, and insurer detail in its SIFMA Swap Index page.
Just as many of the changes were features that were removed.
The site is stripping out MMD forwards, price momentum indicators, active dollar indicators, the economics calendar, the "Best Buy — Maturity" feature, half-hour updates, the Fannie Mae vs. triple-A general obligation municipal comparison, and the outlook on Federal Reserve policy.
Some of these items were intended to support trading of municipal bond futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. Others are just not as relevant anymore.
The site also eliminated state insured yield curves, saying the collapse of the bond insurance industry made many of these curves irrelevant.
"The evaporation of homogenous, triple-A insured markets has undermined the kind of trading that these curves were built upon," Nelson said. "There is very little for the end user to relate to these curves, and their utility is greatly diminished."
Two subsidiaries owned by Assured Guaranty Ltd. are the only bond insurers operating today, and insurance penetration this year has been less than 10%.
