Waters Wavelength Podcast 72: An Examination of the Muni Bond Market

This week on the podcast, Waters reporter Emilia David joins Anthony to discuss her feature that looked at technology adoption in the municipal bond market. And since the summer has finally arrived, Anthony and Emilia look at the summer movies they’re most interested in seeing.

Here are the timestamps, in case you want to jump around:

(0:00-2:05) The intro offers a reminder to vote in this year’s Waters Rankings, and also we announce our newest addition to the Waters team, who will be joining next week.

(2:15) Before they look at the technology platforms permeating the market, Anthony and Emilia first give a primer for the municipal bond market.

(3:50) The two greatest challenges facing the muni space: rising interest rates, and the potential for more debt being issued to help launch infrastructure projects across the US.

(7:30) From a technology perspective, what advancements are helping to drive the adoption of automated practices?

(9:30) The muni space is still very voice-driven, as muni traders tend to be set in their ways, but traders are missing out on finding bonds that they normally wouldn’t have looked at had they used an electronic platform.

(11:50) To that point, the generational differences in the space are still a limiting factor.

(15:10) As we’re seeing with corporate bonds, is there room for artificial intelligence and machine learning in the sector? Or still too soon?

(17:10) Some believe that the market is in for turmoil over the next few years. Will that lead people to rely more heavily on automated practices, or will these platforms prove ineffective, setting the tech push back?

(18:15) Anthony and Emilia close things out by looking at the summer movies they’re most interested in.

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Links to articles discussed:

Waters Rankings Voting Now Open

The Muni Market's Drive Toward Transparency

RegTech Americas 2017

Toronto Financial Information Summit

Contact Info

As is the case with everything we do, we'd love to get some feedback from our listeners. Feel free to reach out to Anthony via Twitter or email.

Anthony: @a_malakian; [email protected]

Past 10 episodes:

Episode 62: Shadow IT, CFTC's Giancarlo at FIA Boca

Episode 63: Acquisition Analysis, Rise of Data Spend

Episode 64: Open Source, Cyber, AI - A NATAS Recap

Episode 65: Public Cloud Providers Battle for Dominance, The Rise of Artificial Intelligence

Episode 66: Technologists & Film Portrayals

Episode 67: A Farewell to Dan

Episode 68: An Inside Look at IBM Watson

Episode 69: AQR's CTO, Neal Pawar, on Engineers & Open Source

Episode 70: A Look at Liquidnet's Acquisition of OTAS

Episode 71: Social Data, Analytics and Trading