Report on the Municipal Securities Market
Report on the Municipal Securities Market ____________________________________________________ U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission July 31, 2012 _______________________________________ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Background on Report on the Municipal Securities Market The mission of the SEC is to protect investors – including investors in municipal securities – maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation. In furtherance of that mission, Chairman Mary L. Schapiro announced in May 2010 that Commissioner Elisse B. Walter, along with staff from across the agency, would lead an effort to examine the municipal securities market. In 2010 and 2011, Commissioner Walter and the Commission staff (“Staff”) held public field hearings in San Francisco, California; Washington, DC; and Birmingham, Alabama. At each of the hearings, the Staff invited individuals representing many different perspectives to participate in panels on specific topics, including disclosure, accounting, pre-trade price transparency, and other investor and municipal issuer concerns. In addition to the field hearings, the Staff held meetings and conference calls with market participants and public comment was invited by email, by mail, through the Commission’s web-based comment submission form, or through a dedicated telephone line. The development of this Report on the Municipal Securities Market (“Report”) included consideration of the transcripts of the field hearings, the comment letters received, academic studies, other publicly available materials, Staff-generated statistics based on certain data sources, and the input received during meetings and conference calls with market participants. This Report commences with an overview of the municipal securities market, the regulatory structure and the roles of key market participants. Next, the Report focuses on two key areas of concern in the municipal securities market: disclosure and market structure.
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