TheMuniCenter LLC, which operates one of the muni market’s oldest online trading platforms, announced yesterday that it would begin this summer adding short-term and money market offerings to its list of tax-exempt products. The short-term listings will begin appearing later this month on its Web site, www.themunicenter.com, which has been newly redesigned. While they will be listed in a “view only” format to start, the platform will work toward enabling live execution of the credits during the coming months. “Literally, we’ve got half a dozen dealers that we’ve been dealing with, several which have already signed contracts,” said Jim Wangsness, TMC’s chief operating officer. Founded in May 2000, TheMuniCenter was one of the first online trading spaces that emphasized fixed-income securities. It was started by a Wall Street consortium that included Citigroup, Merrill Lynch & Co., and Morgan Stanley. TMC caters to retail and institutional trading, and on Wednesday morning listed about 21,000 municipal line items totalling about $14.1 billion of total par. The online platform, paired with a team of brokers, also lists agencies, auction rates, certificates of deposit, corporates, medium-term notes, structured products, and Treasuries. The site yesterday listed 24,000 line items worth a combined $16.3 billion. The initial launch of short-term and money market offerings on TMC’s platform will include about 200 to 300 line items worth about $500 million in total par, said chief executive Tom Vales. That amount will increase to as much as $3 billion by the end of the summer, he added. Along with the announcement, TMC also said it will begin a new initiative in mortgage-backed securities and that it has hired three new traders to its brokerage desk. James Newman, who joined as a vice president covering tax-exempts, came from Chapdelaine & Co. The brokerage desk now includes almost 20 traders, according to Vales. He said the intricacies of individual muni credits, with their unique structures and credit profiles, require more brokers to handle client questions than do other fixed-income asset classes. But while about three-quarters of the firm’s traders now cover munis, the taxable-side business is continuing to grow, Vales said. Wangsness was hired in November to upgrade the firm’s taxable product business lines and expand its client base into new markets. “The second half of this year promises to be an opportune time for TMC clients as our new product offerings — CMOs, whole loans, and auction-rate municipals — come online,” Vales said in a prepared statement.
