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The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) today released its third quarter 2009 Municipal Bond Credit Report. The SIFMA Municipal Bond Credit Report provides market participants and observers research and statistics on various parts of the municipal bond market.
The report highlighted that total long-term issuance for the first nine months of this year reached $288.8 billion, below the $321.5 billion issued in the same period last year. In the short-term market, issuance for the first nine months was $55.1 billion, up from $42.0 billion in the same year-earlier period. Interestingly, $33.5 billion came in the third quarter 2009 alone.
Other key findings from the report include:
- The yield ratio of AAA-rated 10-year Treasury bonds to comparable munis narrowed to 89 percent in the quarter, compared to 95 percent in the second quarter;
- Municipal bond yields are at historically low rates with AAA-rated munis yielding 2.96 percent at the end of the third quarter;
- Build America Bonds remained popular as $20 billion in issuance came to market, a 28.4 percent increase from the previous quarter’s total; and
- Although long-term issuance volume fell to $91.7 billion in the third quarter from the previous one, it was on par with the total from the same period last year ($90.5 billion).
A full copy of the SIFMA Municipal Bond Credit Report can be found by clicking on http://www.sifma.org/research/municipal.shtml or under the “Research” section of the SIFMA web site at www.sifma.org.
