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market activity
Daily trading activity may be tracked through the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB)’s Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website. Transaction reporting in municipals has been available only since 1995. Before that, estimates of market activity were largely fictions, based on anecdotal reporting and the facts of how new issues were priced in the primary market, combined with a look at dealer inventory carried in a publication called the Blue List.
EMMA carries details of all transactions, including sales by customers, purchases by customers, and interdealer trades. Between 15,000 and 20,000 separate issues trade on a given day; volume ranges between $10 billion and $20 billion. The MSRB’s website ranks “most ...