Jonathan Hemmerdinger

MSRB: Dealers to Report Contractual Dollar Price of Interdealer Trades By March 29

The MSRB said today it will change how it calculates bid-to-cover ratios for auction rate securities, one day after the chief executive officer of a Manhattan-based financial advisory firm urged reforms.

The MSRB has revised a draft rule that would require underwriters of 529 college savings plans to file certain plan-related data once or twice a year, instead of quarterly.

President Obama has designated Elisse B. Walter, a leading proponent of increased regulatory oversight of the municipal bond industry, as the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, effective Dec. 14.

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro has announced she will leave her post Dec. 14.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has proposed including two more exceptions in draft rules that would limit underwriters' ability to consent to changes in muni bond authorizing documents.

A Chicago-based broker dealer has launched an electronic platform executives say will help ensure new-issue municipal bonds reach retail investors efficiently and at fair prices.

Trading in the $3.7 trillion municipal securities market continued to decrease in the third quarter of 2012, according to market statistics released Nov. 20 by the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.

In response to new GASB standards, the Government Finance Officers Association wants to give state and local governments guidelines on how to craft sound pension funding policies.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council has proposed regulatory reforms for money market mutual funds similar to those advocated by Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro.

Early next week the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will launch MyEMMA, a free online service that will allow users of the MSRB's EMMA system to customize municipal securities searches and email alerts.

Hurricane Sandy may demonstrate to lawmakers the importance of tax-exempt financing and promote opposition to proposals that threaten munis’ tax exemption.

The MSRB, to boost trade transparency, announced that the par amount of trades of less than $5 million will now be posted on the EMMA system in real time.

Muni groups have warned that a plan by the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation to change fees collected to register new municipal securities would raise issuers' costs and disproportionately affect small state and local governments.

Municipal market participants are split over whether a proposal to tighten oversight of retail-order periods should specifically define types of orders that qualify as "retail."

Stratford Shields, managing director in Chicago at Morgan Stanley, has been elected chair of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's Municipal Securities Division for a two year term, SIFMA announced Friday in a media release.

The Securities and Exchange Commission would impinge on the sovereignty of state and local governments if granted authority requested in its July 31 report on the municipal market, the Government Finance Officers Association is warning.

Lawyers for three former bankers convicted in May of rigging bids for municipal bond contracts have filed appeal notices with an appellate court. The appeals were filed late last week with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan by attorneys for Dominick Carollo, Steven E. Goldberg, and Peter Grimm, former employees at General Electric Co. affiliates.

The MSRB plans to study the idea of restricting, or possibly banning, contributions to bond-ballot campaigns by muni bond dealers.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board plans to propose regulations that would require dealers to disclose more information about contributions to bond-ballot campaigns.