Intercontinental Exchange’s ICE Data Services has launched the ICE US Broad Municipal Index (MUNI), significantly expands its coverage of the US investment grade rated municipal securities market.
The ICE US Broad Municipal Index tracks the performance of over 58,000 investment grade tax-exempt municipal bonds representing over USD1.6 trillion in total market capitalisation. That represents a three-fold increase in the number of bonds, and a 60 per cent increase in the market capitalisation, tracked by our investment grade tax-exempt municipal indices.
“Our US municipal bond indices have history extending back for over 30 years, starting with the launch of what is currently named the ICE BofAML US Municipal Securities Index (U0A0) in the late 1980s,” says Phil Galdi, Head of Indices at ICE Data Services. “We are excited to launch this new index which, when combined with the existing municipal bond indices we already offer, will give investors the flexibility to find a benchmark that best matches their diversity, liquidity and risk management needs.”
MUNI expands on the coverage of U0A0 through two key changes: MUNI holds constituents until they mature, while U0A0 removes constituents once they fall under a year to maturity; and the MUNI Index has lower size filters on amount outstanding.
The ICE municipal securities indices are part of the broad municipal security offering across ICE, which includes ICE Data Services municipal bond evaluations and reference data for over one million bonds, as well as the deep municipal bond liquidity and execution protocols offered by ICE TMC Bonds and BondPoint.