The number of municipal bond trades decreased by 10% in 2021, bringing the total number of trades down to its lowest levels since 2006, according to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.
The MSRB’s annual fact book, released on Thursday, shows that par amount trading volume was down 28% in 2021 when compared with 2020. Taxable securities accounted for 17% of the par traded in 2021, an increase from 14% in 2020.
The board also saw a decrease in primary and continuing disclosures submitted through the MSRB in 2021, with the number of primary disclosures falling to 13,697 in 2021 from 13,914 in 2020. Continuing disclosures fell to 156,294 in 2021 from 156,847 in 2020, “largely as a result of a 3% decline in event-based submissions,” the MSRB said.
“With the 14th edition of the Fact Book, the MSRB is continuing its commitment to equip municipal market participants, policymakers, regulators, academics and others with information to understand long-term and emerging trends in our market,” said Marcelo Vieira, director of research at the MSRB.
The release of the fact book comes
“We are exploring and prototyping new, more dynamic ways to make market data available to the public in our new EMMA Labs innovation sandbox,” Vieira said. “We welcome feedback from stakeholders about how to enhance future editions of the Fact Book, perhaps ultimately replacing this static publication with a truly dynamic data dashboard that gives users greater flexibility to access and analyze the data throughout the year.”
The fact book also shows the number of trades by the time of day, highlighting that trading volume peaks between 10:00am and 4:00pm with the largest volume of trades occurring between 11:00am and 12:00pm.
Similarly, the number of trades steadily increases from 28,806 on Monday to 32,919 on Wednesday before dropping off and settling at 26,319 on Friday.
The MSRB issues its fact book annually but also publishes quarterly updates to the fact book on its website.
