It's the end of an era. Friday, after 65 years, Standard & Poor's Blue List published its final issue and ceased operation.
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The demise marks the decision by the longstanding institution ultimately not to compete in the rapidly changing market for offering municipal bonds in the secondary market. In that sector, as the number of electronic options for listing and trading in bonds has grown in recent years, the value of the list has declined, sources said. There became little value in determining how "heavy" the Blue List was on any given day, they said.
In the farewell message posted on its Web site, publisher Malcom D. Conner said when it launched in 1935, the Blue List contained 188 offerings from 27 firms with a value of $15.7 million. It was distributed by mail. In the years it published, it peaked at a high of more than 27,000 daily offerings from 800 firms, with a par value exceeding $3.2 billion. In its final publication on Friday, the Blue List totaled $461.4 million.
The muni market turned to the Blue List for at least two reasons throughout its tenure, first as a trading tool and second as a barometer to gauge the volume of bonds for sale.
There is general agreement among municipal traders and research analysts that the Blue List in recent years had lost meaning as a sales tool. The variety of bonds listed on numerous electronic trading platforms and the private lists circulated in e-mails by brokers have in many ways superceded the paper list, and its online counterpart. The ability to get updated pricing information from the electronic sources made them all better than a static document.
The Bond Buyer has published the Blue List's total volume figure daily as part of its statistical offerings in an effort to give readers an indicator with which to measure secondary market volume. While in recent years some industry participants have discounted the accuracy and usefulness of this number, the change in that number -- relative to itself -- has provided something of a yardstick for determining the sales activity in the muni market.
In an effort to continue to provide our readers with a gauge of that secondary market activity, The Bond Buyer beginning today is publishing the final figure compiled daily by TheMuniCenter from the bonds posted for sale on its electronic trading platform.
TheMuniCenter is a live business-to-business marketplace created for municipal bonds, with an open platform that includes inventory from dealers and from the buy side as well. It offers live, executable pricing that should make it difficult for postings there to be duplicated on other electronic sites.
On Friday, the total par value of the bond offerings there was $1.361 billion.
In the last three full months, TheMuniCenter's figures show that platform listed a substantially greater par value of bonds than did the Blue List. For example, in May, TheMuniCenter's average daily balance of offerings totaled $996.2 million, while the Blue List totaled $761.6 million. In June, TheMuniCenter's average daily balances were $1.298 billion, compared with $711.2 million on the Blue List. That number may have declined after the announcement of the Blue List's closing plans on June 18. Last month, theMuniCenter listed an average daily balance of $1.366 billion, compared to the Blue List's $444.7 million.
Based on its size, and the opinions of a number of industry participants, The Bond Buyer will use TheMuniCenter's number as a place to start trying to accurately represent the volume of bonds for sale in the secondary.
This decision is not exclusive. The paper is open to publishing other numbers in addition to this one, if market participants feel that it would be a benefit to do so. Please tell us if you want to see intra-day totals or multiple totals, or any other specific type of information, or style of presentation.
The paper is also exploring ways in which we might devise another gauge of the secondary market.
I am inviting all of our readers to participate in a dialogue on how best to gauge secondary market activity. Please don't hesitate to get involved.
A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
As this new era begins, I want to ask any of you with strong opinions about the industry -- and on this issue of secondary market activity in particular -- to put those thoughts on paper as contributions to this page.
This is a time of transition. The municipal market continues to move from a paper- and phone-based market to one that is increasingly electronic. The Bond Buyer, which was around when the Blue List launched, continues more than six decades later to strive to provide important information to meet the needs of this market as it evolves.
We want to make sure that our coverage reflects the newest and most interesting opinions and ideas that members of the municipal marketplace are developing. A vibrant Commentary section works in concert with that, to put the pen in your hands to give the municipal community additional details and personal viewpoints. Submissions should be between 500 and 750 words. Please feel free to call me at (212) 803-8432 at any time to discuss a column idea, or with any other comments you have on our coverage.
I look forward to your contributions, and to continuing to work with you to keep The Bond Buyer relevant as a window on what's going on in the industry.
Amy B. Resnick is the editor-in-chief of The Bond Buyer.
