SEC to Hold Fixed Income Roundtable

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it will hold a roundtable on April 16 to discuss potential ways to improve the transparency and efficiency of fixed income markets. The roundtable will focus on the corporate bond market and the municipal securities market, which was the subject of a July 2012 Commission report.

The roundtable will be held at the SEC’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, and will be open to the public and webcast live on the SEC’s website. Information on the agenda and participants will be issued shortly.

“As regulators, we must continually work to enhance the quality of the fixed income markets, which are critical to the U.S. economy,” said SEC Chairman Elisse Walter. “We’ve already taken a step in that direction by issuing a report last summer on the municipal securities market and this roundtable will be another step forward.”

The U.S. fixed income markets help finance the nation’s public infrastructure and private businesses. Fixed income securities also are important components of the investment portfolios of the American public, with retail investors directly or indirectly holding more than 75 percent of the outstanding principal amount of municipal securities and 28 percent of the outstanding principal amount of corporate bonds.

The Commission’s 2012 Report on the Municipal Securities Market made a variety of recommendations to improve pre-trade and post-trade price transparency and to strengthen brokers’ existing obligations to provide investors with best execution and fair pricing. The roundtable will provide a forum for in-depth discussion of these and other ideas to enhance the municipal securities market as well as the extent to which those recommendations could be applied to the corporate bond market.

“I look forward to hearing the views of a wide range of knowledgeable market participants, investors, and others on how best to improve the transparency, efficiency and fairness of the fixed income markets and practical ways in which these ideas might be implemented,” said Chairman Walter.