Connecting capital markets and real-world infrastructure
Municipal bonds or ‘Munis’ are debt securities issued by states, municipalities, or counties to finance major infrastructure projects such as bridges, roads and schools. Munis offer a differentiated investment for capital market participants with their tax advantages, stable returns and contributions to community development. In this series ‘The Munis Ecosystem’, ICE is gathering experts from across the sector: issuers, portfolio managers, pricing & analytics, trading and climate experts, to explore how data, electronification and liquidity are evolving in the muni market.
New York City’s strategy to engage investors for capital projects
States, municipalities and counties are central entities driving the muni market with total outstanding debt of ~$4 trillion across United States.
Varun Pawar, ICE’s Chief Product Officer for Fixed Income and Data services, sits down with David Womack, Deputy Director of the New York City office of budget management, to explore how a major issuer like New York City engages the capital markets and raise funds to finance infrastructure.
How Goldman Sachs balances the analytics and liquidity challenge
Portfolio managers aim to generate the best returns per the mandates and investment strategy their firms pursue.
In this conversation at the NYSE Bond room, Goldman Sachs’ Ed Paulinski, Portfolio Manager and Head of Municipal Separately Managed Account (SMA) Platform, discusses the unique aspects of managing a muni portfolio.
Accessing the right liquidity
A ‘buyer’ and a ‘seller’ is what makes a market. The trick is to find a transaction that meets the needs of both.
LAURENT PAULHAC, CEO of Millennium Advisors, a proprietary trading firm, discusses what it takes to make liquidity work for the munis asset class.
It all happens here
The year was 1817 and Governor DeWitt Clinton was faced with a $7 million bill for funding the construction of the Erie Canal.
He turned to the New York capital markets and the NYSE to issue the first ever General Obligation Municipal Bond.
Anna Melo, Archivist at the NYSE shares the fascinating story of how the muni markets evolved to unlock the capital needed for funding the infrastructure boom across the U.S., driving the growth for millions of people in the following decades.
Connecting the muni market
Munis are a unique asset class. It’s a $4 trillion market that is highly fragmented, where data can be scarce and inconsistent. The challenges created by one million active securities, over 50,000 issuers, with fewer than 1% of munis trading daily have meant that innovation and new ways of doing business have been a long time coming.
ICE’s leading digital networks combine expertise, data and technology to connect people to opportunity.
ICE: Connecting the muni market
ICE covers over 5 million active and inactive municipal securities, spanning more than 400 attributes. Our comprehensive muni reference data complements our evaluated pricing with a broad range of descriptive information.
In addition to this, ICE also covers aspects of the munis eco system including:
Evaluated pricing: Our trusted, end-of-day independent evaluations for approximately 1 million municipal securities offer an established source of pricing for your munis.
Climate risk: insight into the potential impact on property tax revenue and GDP of municipalities due to climate-related challenges such as hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfire.
Social impact: Quantify the social impact of your muni investments with Social Impact Score and Demographic Data. The dataset incorporates 100+ demographic attributes into major categories that include income, poverty concentration, educational attainment and more.
ICE offers unparalleled access to liquidity in the municipal bonds market, providing advanced trading solutions trusted by a diverse range of market participants. Whether you're an institutional investor, broker-dealer, or asset manager, our platform delivers deep, unique liquidity, facilitating efficient price discovery and execution.
Leverage ICE solutions such as:
Calculating muni indices for over three decades, ICE Data Indices currently produces over 300 indices covering the breadth of the muni bond market. Index coverage includes both tax-exempt and taxable debt as well as Variable Rate Demand Obligations (VRDOs). Utilized by investors for decades, ICE municipal indices are benchmarks for some of the largest muni ETFs.
ICE Data API offers 100+ fixed income analytics fields for the muni market. In addition, our Kalotay Analytics software allows you to run analytics in-house to compliment your custom applications.
Bond curves: The ICE US Municipal AAA Yield Curve is a rules-based and transaction driven curve, supported by our evaluators. It is produced continuously and available as an intraday or end-of-day curve. The curve supports muni CEP™, as well as our end-of-day muni evaluations.
Liquidity indicators: This service provides key metrics on a portfolio’s days to liquidate projections, relative liquidity to a variety of benchmarks, transaction cost estimates and liquidity classification. Muni coverage spans the active universe of approximately 1 million securities.
Important disclosures
Trading and execution services are offered through ICE Bonds Securities Corporation or ICE Bonds, member FINRA, MSRB and SIPC. The information found herein, has been prepared solely for informational purposes and should not be considered investment advice, is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to buy any financial product(s), is intended for institutional customers only and is not intended for retail customer use.
Fixed income evaluations, continuous evaluated pricing, end-of-day evaluations, evaluated curves, model based curves, Market Sentiment scores, Size-Adjusted Pricing and Fair Value Information Services related to securities are provided in the US through ICE Data Pricing & Reference Data, LLC and internationally through ICE Data Services entities in Europe and Asia Pacific. ICE Data Pricing & Reference Data, LLC is a registered investment adviser with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Additional information about ICE Data Pricing & Reference Data, LLC is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov. A copy of ICE Data Pricing & Reference Data, LLC’s Form ADV is available upon request
Index products and services are provided by ICE Data Indices, LLC